The main street in this photo, heading straight out from Ernst-Reuter-Platz is the Straße des 17. Juni or the 17th of June Street. The name honours 25,000 East Berliners that rose up in 1953 to protest a 10% increase in the work quota. Ultimately,they were protesting more than just increased work for the same pay but that was the flash point.
Soviet tanks were brought in as well as 20,000 Soviet troops. Against a force like that, they didn't stand a chance. It had started on the 16th, by the 17th, it was over. People were imprisoned, some shot, some killed. No one really knows how many. Officially, 25 people died. Estimates say perhaps more than 500 with another 100 or so political prisoners executed.
After surviving WWII and the bombing of Berlin, they were now being shot and imprisoned by their own puppet government and their Soviet masters.
It would be another 37 years before the people of East Berlin could feel freedom again.
My other photographs from Berlin can be found in the gallery.
Camera: NIKON D90 Lens Type: 10.0-24.0 mm f/3.5-4.5 Focal Length:
10 mm
35mm Focal Length: 15 mm Exposure:
1/10 sec
Aperture:
f 8
ISO:
100
Views:
3425 Taken: 2012-02-24 14:49:49 Posted:
2013-02-13 | 16:41
Ernst-Reuter-Platz
The main street in this photo, heading straight out from Ernst-Reuter-Platz is the Straße des 17. Juni or the 17th of June Street. The name honours 25,000 East Berliners that rose up in 1953 to protest a 10% increase in the work quota. Ultimately,they were protesting more than just increased work for the same pay but that was the flash point.
Soviet tanks were brought in as well as 20,000 Soviet troops. Against a force like that, they didn't stand a chance. It had started on the 16th, by the 17th, it was over. People were imprisoned, some shot, some killed. No one really knows how many. Officially, 25 people died. Estimates say perhaps more than 500 with another 100 or so political prisoners executed.
After surviving WWII and the bombing of Berlin, they were now being shot and imprisoned by their own puppet government and their Soviet masters.
It would be another 37 years before the people of East Berlin could feel freedom again.
My other photographs from Berlin can be found in the gallery.
