Fifty years ago, on August 13 1961, the wall was erected in haste across the heart of a divided Germany's former capital, instantly becoming the starkest Cold War symbol of the Iron Curtain between the free West and Communist, totalitarian East.
The sudden and speedy construction of the East-West barrier caught many Berliners by surprise, including those who were killed as they tried to circumvent the wall as it arose and to this day historians still cannot agree where the first brick was laid.
