Studio on the barbed wire

Billboard on the Berlin Wall at Potsdamer Platz, on the right a car from the Studio am Barbed Wire , 1965

The Studio at the barbed wire (SaS) was an initiative of the Berlin interior minister , Joachim Lipschitz , in August 1961 from West Berlin Senate in cooperation with the RIAS furnished mobile speaker system , which equipped with correspondingly VW buses information and news about the Berlin Wall away radiated to the east of the city .

The rolling studio was supposed to be a reaction to East Berlin loudspeaker propaganda, which in turn was a response to the numerous posters in West Berlin , especially aimed at border and people's police ( "Germans, don't shoot Germans!" )

The use of SaS buses marked the beginning of the so-called loudspeaker war.

The loudspeaker activity ended after a major operation on October 7, 1965. On this 16th anniversary of the GDR , a tattoo by the National People's Army (NVA), held in a barracks west of Gatow , was severely disrupted with loud music and announcements. A 5000 watt transmitter with a range of more than five kilometers was installed especially for this occasion. On the part of the GDR , this led to the realization that no suitable technical countermeasures could be carried out and dismantled the loudspeaker systems along the border. Thereupon the SaS also stopped its loudspeaker operation.

Neon sign systems

The neon sign on Potsdamer Platz, 1965

Since October 1963, the SaS has also been operating four high-level walking writing systems with the latest headlines on world political events, information about the situation in the GDR and escape attempts and other incidents at the Wall. The main system was located in the high-rise building belonging to the GSW housing association in Kochstrasse . There was also an office of the SaS, in which the texts were produced. These were forwarded to the other systems by telex. These were located on the roof of the Rudolf Wissell School at Ellerbeker Strasse 7 in Gesundbrunnen , on the Dörferblick elevation in Rudow and at Potsdamer Platz , where the SaS took over responsibility for the system that was set up by West Berlin newspaper publishers in October 1950. The four-meter-high neon sign on the main facility shone in the direction of Alexanderplatz and was given a special light-reflecting paint, which not only failed attempts by the People's Police to dazzle the facility with headlights, but even increased the luminosity of the lettering. The imminent start of negotiations on the Berlin Agreement in March 1970 heralds the end of the SaS. The already difficult negotiations should not be unnecessarily complicated by avoidable actions. In December 1969, the operation of the neon sign systems and thus the SaS as a whole is stopped.

literature

Peter Pragal, Eckart D. Stratenschulte : The monologue of the loudspeakers and other stories from the divided Berlin , dtv, Munich 1999, ISBN 978-3-423-36149-1

Association of the Berlin Wall Memorial and Documentation Center eV [Ed.]: Studio on the barbed wire. Audio documents on contemporary history , 1 audio CD with booklet, Berlin, 2008

Web links

Commons : Potsdamer Platz in the 1960s - Collection of images, videos and audio files