17 rare shots from the history of the Berlin Wall

On August 13, 1961, the construction of the Berlin Wall began, dividing the city and designed to stop the attempts of defectors from the GDR to West Berlin. We have collected footage from the history of this legendary building - from its construction to destruction.

1. Aerial view of divided Berlin overlooking St. Thomas Church in the western part of the city, through the Berlin Wall in the east, in 1981. (Keenpress, Getty Images)

2. During its existence from 1961 to 1989, the wall stopped almost all emigration and separated East Germany from West for more than a quarter of a century. In this picture, West Berlin police stand behind barbed wire against a large concrete wall at the Brandenburg Gate on November 23, 1961. The Communists had just broken the screen covering the wall. In the picture you can see how the material used to build the wall is loaded on the other side of the concrete barrier. (AP)

3. Before the wall was erected, 3.5 million East Germans escaped restrictions on emigration and fled to West Germany, across the border between East and West Berlin. At that time, there was a real economic boom in West Berlin, which East Berliners wanted to be a part of. In the photo, people climb onto a bus to look over the newly built Berlin Wall. (Keystone, Getty Images)

4. Due to the closure of the east-west part of the border in Berlin, a large number of East Germans could no longer travel or emigrate to West Germany. Many families were divided; East Berliners who worked in the West were cut off from their jobs, and West Berliners were isolated on hostile land. Two girls on a West German street talk to their grandparents in the window of a house in the Eastern Zone, separated by a barricade of barbed wire, on August 14, 1961. (Keystone, Getty Images)

5. After the wall was erected, about 5,000 people tried to escape. Between 98 and 200 people died as a result. In this photo, a dying Peter Fechter is carried away by East German border guards who shot at him as he tried to flee west on August 17, 1962. Two former border guards have been charged with murder. Fechter lay on neutral ground for 50 minutes, after which he was taken to the hospital, where he died. (AP)

6. American soldiers in a machine gun-equipped jeep, while patrolling the Berlin Wall along the Spree River in Kreuzberg, Berlin, circa 1981. (Keenpress, Getty Images)

7. In this photo from 1981, you can see a segment of the "death stripe" between the outer and inner parts of the Berlin Wall. The segment uses guards, searchlights, hedgehogs and more than 100 km of electric wire to isolate East Berlin from West. (Keenpress, Getty Images)

8. A completely different scene on the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989, when the East German government announced after several weeks of uprisings that all citizens of the GDR could visit West Germany and West Berlin. The crowd celebrates the fall of the Berlin Wall. (Tom Stoddart, Getty Images)

9. East German women weep with joy as they cross the border to the west at Checkpoint Charlie on the night of November 9, 1989, as the Berlin Wall falls. (Tom Stoddart, Getty Images)

10. Demonstrators on the western side of the Berlin Wall try to tear down part of the wall near the Brandenburg Gate on November 11, 1989. (Lionel Cironneau, AP)

11. East German border guards use a water cannon to disperse West Berliners near the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin on November 11, 1989. Residents of the western part tried to demolish the wall. (Lionel Cironneau, AP)

12. Soldiers of the border guard of East Germany stand at the open part of the Berlin Wall, which the demonstrators are trying to demolish at the Brandenburg Gate on November 11, 1989. (Lionel Cironneau, AP)

13. East German soldiers guard the border at Ostpreussendamm on the morning of November 14, 1989, where East German workers are installing a passage through the wall. Hundreds of East Berliners poured through the gate into the western part of the divided city. (Thomas Kienzle, AP)

14. A West Berliner tries to smash the Berlin Wall with a hammer near Potsdamer Square on November 12, 1989. (John Gaps III, AP)

15. An East German border guard handing out barbed wire he cut from the Berlin Wall at the Ostpreussendamm passage in Berlin November 14, 1989. (John Gaps III, AP)

16. Young residents of East Berlin scream with joy as they run through the passage to West Berlin at the Brandenburg Gate on December 23, 1989. The new East German government then promised to fully open the gates by Christmas. (Hansjoerg Krauss, AP)

17. US official Steve Rogers from Oakland. California, talking to East German border guard Mike Staaps, who looks out of a hole in the east side of the Berlin Wall on March 26, 1990. (Herbert Proepper, AP)