23 August 1961
At 11.05 am, a 30-year-old worker who was given the job of placing flower bowls on the Wall at the Brandenburg Gate escapes to the western part of Berlin protected by a truck.
As a response to the ban on approaching the Wall that had been imposed the day before, American, British and French armed forces in all sectors begin patrols along the sector border with tanks and artillery in the afternoon. The movements of the Allies are recorded in great detail by the People’s Police.
The East Berlin mayor, Friedrich Ebert, writes to the West Berlin Senate, asking it to "give the German Travel Agency (Editor’s note: of the GDR) the opportunity of setting up two branches in West Berlin for accepting applications to enter democratic Berlin and for issuing permits to the applicants". Such a procedure, he writes, would save the citizens of West Berlin "unnecessary running around". – The letter goes unanswered.
The three Western city commanders condemn the measures announced by the GDR the day before as "illegal". Ruling Mayor Brandt makes it clear that the Senate on the West Berlin side will not tolerate any institutions that carry out orders by GDR authorities. He describes the new restrictions, particularly the reduction in border crossings, as a "new humiliation" for the Western Powers. – Government politicians in Bonn welcome that fact that the Allies are taking up positions on the sector border, but do not see any possibility for adequate counter-measures against the final sealing-off of East Berlin, as, they say, anything must be avoided that could provide the GDR with a pretext for closing the access routes to and from West Berlin.
The state executive board of the Berlin SPD reacts to the sometimes violent closure of SPD offices in East Berlin by Combat Groups over the previous days, and disbands the eight district organisations of the SPD in East Berlin with immediate effect to protect its followers. The resolution ends with the words: "We thank everyone. We forget no one. We forget nothing."
Under the headline "The Magnificent Spirit of Our Youth Association", "Neues Deutschland" publishes the report of the central council of the FDJ (Free German Youth) to the SED Politburo on the military rallies ("Kampfappelle") that were held on 18 August among the basic units of the FDJ. The immediate task that the SED Politburo sets the FDJ under the slogan "The Fatherland is calling – protect the socialist republic!" is to recruit as many young men aged 18 to 23 as possible for the National People’s Army. Another aim of the "mission" is to "instil in the heart of every young person confidence in the victorious power of socialism-communism, loyalty to the worker-and-peasant power, and hate of the mortal enemies of the working class, the militarists and fascists."
In the afternoon, the SED Politburo in Stalinallee in East Berlin inspects a military rally of the Berlin "Combat Groups of the Working Class". In a speech, Walter Ulbricht describes the "Bonn methods of preparing aggression" against the GDR using the catchword "right of self-determination" as being identical with those employed by Hitler and Goebbels. He says that the next task is to prepare the peace treaty. For this to be done, he says, the GDR must be strengthened, the national economic plan fulfilled and the harvest brought in successfully. This military rally marks the end of border duties for most of the Combat Group members, who return to their factories. However, over 18,000 armed personnel from the Border Brigade under the command of the Interior Ministry, the East Berlin People’s Police and the transport police remain on the border.
