West Berlin 1990

[Kennedy Tadder]

West Berlin was formally controlled by the Western Allies and entirely surrounded by East Berlin and East Germany. West Berlin had great symbolic significance during the Cold War, as it was widely considered by westerners an "island of freedom".[1] It was heavily subsidised by West Germany as a "showcase of the West".[2] A wealthy city, West Berlin was noted for its distinctly cosmopolitan character, and as a centre of education, research and culture. With about two million inhabitants, West Berlin had the largest population of any city in Germany during the Cold War era.[3]

West Berlin was 160 km (100 mi) east and north of the Inner German border and only accessible by land from West Germany by narrow rail and highway corridors. It consisted of the American, British, and French occupation sectors established in 1945. The Berlin Wall, built in 1961, physically separated West Berlin from its East Berlin and East German surroundings until it fell in 1989.[4] On 3 October 1990, the day Germany was officially reunified, East and West Berlin united, joined the Federal Republic as a Stadtstaat (city-state) and, eventually, again became the capital of Germany.

Following the Berlin Blockade, normal contacts between East and West Berlin resumed. This was temporary until talks were resumed.[5] In 1952, the East German government began sealing its borders, further isolating West Berlin.[6] As a direct result, electrical grids were separated and phone lines were cut.[5] The Volkspolizei and Soviet military personnel also continued the process of blocking all the roads leading away from the city, resulting in several armed standoffs and at least one skirmish with the French Gendarmerie and the Bundesgrenzschutz that June.[6] However, the culmination of the schism did not occur until 1961 with the construction of the Berlin Wall.[5]

From the legal theory followed by the Western Allies, the occupation of most of Germany ended in 1949 with the establishment of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) on 23 May and of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) on 7 October. Under Article 127 of the Basic Law (or constitution) of the Federal Republic, provision was made for federal laws to be extended to Greater Berlin (as Berlin was called during the 1920 expansion of its municipal boundaries) as well as Baden, Rhineland-Palatinate and Wrttemberg-Hohenzollern within one year of its promulgation.[7] However, because the occupation of Berlin could be ended only by a quadripartite agreement, Berlin remained an occupied territory under the formal sovereignty of the allies. Hence, the Basic Law was not fully applicable to West Berlin.[8]

On 4 August 1950, the House of Representatives, the city's legislature, passed a new constitution, declaring Berlin to be a state of the Federal Republic and the provisions of the Basic Law as binding law superior to Berlin state law (Article 1, clauses 2 and 3). However, that became statutory law only on 1 September and only with the inclusion of the western Allied provision[9] according to which Art. 1, clauses 2 and 3, were deferred for the time being; the clauses became valid law only on 3 October 1990 (the day of Germany's unification). It stated:

Article 87 is interpreted as meaning that during the transitional period Berlin shall possess none of the attributes of a twelfth Land. The provision of this Article concerning the Basic Law will only apply to the extent necessary to prevent a conflict between this Law and the Berlin Constitution....[10][11]

In addition, West German federal statutes could only take effect in West Berlin with the approval of the city's legislature.[8]The ambiguous legal status of the city, then still legally styled as Greater Berlin (although technically only comprising the western sectors), meant that West Berliners were not eligible to vote in federal elections. In their notification of permission of 12 May 1949 the three western military governors for Germany explained their proviso in No. 4, as follows:

A third reservation concerns the participation of Greater Berlin in the Federation. We interpret the effect of Articles 23 and 144 (2) of the Basic Law as constituting acceptance of our previous request that while Berlin may not be accorded voting membership in the Bundestag or Bundesrat nor be governed by the Federation she may, nevertheless, designate a small number of representatives to the meetings of those legislative bodies.[12]

Consequently, West Berliners were indirectly represented in the Bundestag in Bonn by 22 non-voting delegates[13] chosen by the House of Representatives.[14] Similarly, the Senate (the city's executive) sent four non-voting delegates to the Bundesrat.[15] In addition, when the first direct elections to the European Parliament were held in 1979, West Berlin's three members were instead indirectly elected by the House of Representatives.[16]

However, as West German citizens, West Berliners were able to stand for election in West Germany. For example, Social Democrat Willy Brandt, who eventually became Chancellor, was elected via his party's list of candidates. The West German government considered all West Berliners as well as all citizens of the GDR to be citizens of West Germany. Male residents of West Berlin were exempt from the Federal Republic's compulsory military service. This exemption made the city a popular destination for West German young people, which resulted in a flourishing counterculture, which in turn became one of the defining features of the city.[17][18]

The Western Allies remained the ultimate political authorities in West Berlin. All legislation of the House of Representatives, whether of the West Berlin legislature or adopted federal law, only applied under the proviso of confirmation by the three Western Allied commanders-in-chief.[citation needed] If they approved a bill, it was enacted as part of West Berlin's statutory law. If the commanders-in-chief rejected a bill, it did not become law in West Berlin; this, for example, was the case with West German laws on military duty. West Berlin was run by the elected Governing Mayor and Senate seated at Rathaus Schneberg. The Governing Mayor and Senators (ministers) had to be approved by the Western Allies and thus derived their authority from the occupying forces, not from their electoral mandate.[citation needed]

The Soviets unilaterally declared the occupation of East Berlin at an end along with the rest of East Germany. This move was, however, not recognised by the Western Allies, who continued to view all of Berlin as a jointly occupied territory belonging to neither of the two German states.[citation needed] This view was supported by the continued practice of patrols of all four sectors by soldiers of all four occupying powers. Thus, occasionally Western Allied soldiers were on patrol in East Berlin as were Soviet soldiers in West Berlin. After the Wall was built, East Germany wanted to control Western Allied patrols upon entering or leaving East Berlin, a practice that the Western Allies regarded as unacceptable.[citation needed] After protests to the Soviets, the patrols continued uncontrolled on both sides, with the tacit agreement that the western Allies would not use their patrolling privileges for helping Easterners to flee to the West.[citation needed]

In many ways, West Berlin functioned as the de facto 11th state of West Germany and was depicted on maps published in the West as being a part of West Germany. There was freedom of movement (to the extent allowed by geography) between West Berlin and West Germany. There were no separate immigration regulations for West Berlin, all immigration rules for West Germany being followed in West Berlin. West German entry visas issued to visitors were stamped with "for the Federal Republic of Germany, including the State of Berlin", in German "fr die Bundesrepublik Deutschland einschl. [einschlielich] des Landes Berlin", prompting complaints from the Soviet Union. However, this wording remained on the visas throughout the rest of the entire period of West Berlin's existence.[19][20]

West Berlin remained under military occupation until 3 October 1990, the day of unification of East Germany, East and West Berlin with the Federal Republic of Germany. The West German Federal Government, as well as the governments of most western nations, considered East Berlin to be a "separate entity" from East Germany, and while the Western Allies later opened embassies in East Berlin, they recognised the city only as the seat of government of the GDR, not as its capital.[21]

Communist countries, however, did not recognise West Berlin as part of West Germany and usually described it as a "third" German jurisdiction, called an "independent political unit" (German: selbstndige politische Einheit).[22] On maps of East Berlin, West Berlin often did not appear as an adjacent urban area but as a monochrome terra incognita, sometimes showing the letters WB, meaning "Westberlin" (German: Westberlin) or overlaid with a legend or pictures. It was often labelled "Westberlin special political area" (German: Besonderes politisches Gebiet Westberlin).[23]

The Federal Republic of Germany issued West German passports to West Berliners on request that showed West Berlin as their place of residence. However, West Berliners could not use their passports for crossing East German borders and were denied entrance by any country of the Eastern Bloc, since governments of these countries held the view that West Germany was not authorized to issue legal papers for West Berliners.[24]

Since West Berlin was not a sovereign state, it did not issue passports. Instead, West Berliners were issued with "auxiliary identity cards" by the West Berlin authorities. These differed visually from the regular West German identity cards, with green bindings instead of the grey standard, they did not show the "Federal Eagle" or coat of arms, and contained no indications as to the issuing State. However, they did have a statement that the holder of the document was a German citizen.[25] From 11 June 1968, East Germany made it mandatory that West Berlin and West German "transit passengers" obtain a transit visa, issued upon entering East Germany,[26] because under its second constitution East Germany considered West Germans and West Berliners foreigners. Since identity cards had no pages to stamp visas, issuers of East German visas stamped their visas onto separate leaflets which were loosely stuck into the identity cards, which, until the mid-1980s, were little booklets. Although the West German government subsidized visa fees, they were still payable by individual travellers.[21]

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