Touted by the East German leadership as a barrier against "fascist provocation," the Wall was really an attempt to stop waves of skilled workers and educated people leaving a repressive state

Touted by the East German leadership as a barrier against "fascist provocation," the Wall was really an attempt to stop waves of skilled workers and educated people leaving a repressive state. Around 3 million fled between 1945 and 1961, when the Wall went up. In time, it became etched in the Western consciousness as a symbol of inhumanity. More than 100 people were picked off by border guards while trying to escape; dozens of others were killed by mines. However, by November 9, 1989, deep political shifts had prepared the ground for an earthquake. Leader Erich Honecker had been forced to resign and 4 million people had demonstrated for democracy. On that momentous day, the government's spokesman Guenther Schabowski announced that East Germans could go to West Germany if they applied for a visa. Within minutes, people swarmed around the wall's border posts in what amounted to a siege. At midnight, they broke through to West Germany. That sounded the death knell for the Cold War and set the stage for German reunification a little more than a year later. But 15 years on, a very different kind of mass mobilisation took place. The demonstrations in Leipzig this August highlighted the economic plight of the former East German regions, where unemployment is double that of the western part. When the old regime collapsed, many skilled workers found themselves on the wrong side of supply-and-demand economics.