50th Anniversary of the Building of the Berlin Wall
We joined with the Berlin Wall Foundation to pay tribute to the victims of the Berlin Wall and the division of Germany in a very special way.
On 13 August 1961, the lives of millions of Berliners changed dramatically overnight. A 160-km-long militarily border was set up around West Berlin, dividing the city, separating families, friends and neighbours, and cutting off entire streets, waterways and public transport lines. The focus of the diverse event programme we co-developed with partners to mark the 50th anniversary of the building of the Wall was on precisely these themes, namely the inhumanity of the Berlin Wall, the profile of the divided city, and the destinies and the hopes of people on both sides. Our aim was to give contemporary audiences living 50 years after the fact a tangible sense of what it was like the day the GDR built the Berlin Wall, an event of which many people still have indelible memories.
The highlight was the main memorial event held at the Berlin Wall Memorial on 13 August 2011 and attended by over 20,000 guests.