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Hello and thank you for downloading the podcast of Witness History from the BBC World Service.

History is told by the people who were there.

I'm Simon Watts and today I'm taking you back 60 years to the start of the building of the Berlin Wall.

The Wall divided the German city for nearly three decades and became a symbol of the Cold War.

East Berliners were awakened early the small and became a symbol of the Cold War.

East Berliners were awakened early this morning by heavy army lorries roaring through the streets

and by the sirens of police cars.

This was their first indication of the fact that the East German authorities had decided to seal

off West Berlin from East Berlin and from East Germany which surrounds it.

In the early hours of Sunday the 13th of August 1961, troops and police from East Germany

began building the wall that would divide Berlin into two cities, the communist east and the capitalist west.

Since about one o'clock this morning the nomadic drills have been at work

digging a trench straight across Ebertsnase here at the Brandenburg Gate.

This German radio reporter watched as trenches were dug for the foundations of the wall.

They're actually smiling as they work their drills.

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