After the fall of Berlin in May 1945 the occupying forces divided the city into four sectors: One American, one British, one French and one Russian. Correspondingly Germany was divided into four different zones. In the 1950s more and more people fled from the Russian Zone of Germany to one of the Western  Zones. A lot of refugees chose to flee to West-Berlin. From there they were flown out to Western Germany.

The Eastern Zone was the German Democratic Republic, West-Germany was called Bundesrepublik. That people wanted to flee the GDR showed, what a bad regime they had in the GDR. Refugees were received with open arms in the West. The GDR made it very difficult for people to flee once the “Wall” was built around West-Berlin and right along the border of East- and West-Germany.

Here are some refugees near the Brandenburg Gate in 1953:

In the picture underneath are some West-Berliners gathered waiting for the arrival of relatives from the East who presumably want to flee the GDR.

All pictures are taken from “Aus dem Berliner Tagebuch” by Thilo Koch published by Bertelsmann Club GmbH