26 August 1961
In a report to the CPSU Central Committee about the situation in Berlin, the Soviet Defence Ministry refers to the killing of Günter Litfin two days previously. The report says that, owing to this incident, Soviet representatives in East Berlin have given SED leaders and high-ranking GDR officers instructions "not to allow any actions that could lead to an escalation of the situation".
To prevent further escapes, a barbed-wire net is set up in Gleimstrasse in the north of Berlin as an additional barrier alongside the Wall and barbed-wire fences.
A West German citizen reports on the dejected mood he observed during a visit to the GDR and East Berlin.
A police constable who is an officer trainee at the Police Academy in Halle manages to escape to West Berlin. A few days later, he talks to RIAS about the mood among border police, the implementation of the "order to shoot" and the negative attitude of people in the GDR to the border police.
Despite the ban imposed the previous day by the Allies, permit offices of the GDR Interior Ministry open at 8.00 a.m. at the train stations Zoologischer Garten and Westkreuz belonging to the Deutsche Reichsbahn (GDR state railway). There, application forms for an entry permit to East Berlin are handed out to West Berlin citizens. There is soon protest from West Berlin residents. A boycott of the "GDR" offices is demanded. At the Zoo railway station, West Berliners put up a sign saying: "Entrance to concentration camp – one West German mark. Do you want to go?" The discussions between the applicants and opponents become so heated that police are forced to guard the permit offices.
In the early afternoon, the West Berlin police close the permit offices at the order of all three Western city commanders. The offices are prohibited from reopening.
In uniform responses, the Western Powers sharply reject the Soviet memorandum of 23 August 1961 as a "barely concealed threat of aggression against Allied air routes to and from Berlin". They add that restrictions on their free access to Berlin by the Soviet government or its East German regime will have "very serious consequences".
The ambassadors of the USA, France and Great Britain send notes of protest to the Soviet ambassador in East Berlin, Mikhail Pervuchin, criticising, among other things, the allocation of only one border crossing to Allied personnel in Berlin ("Checkpoint Charlie") as a violation of Allied agreements.
In a memorandum to the US government, the GDR protests at the transferral of American troops to West Berlin "by the improper use of GDR transport routes". It states that the "provocative march by the US combat group through the sovereign territory of the GDR" complicated the existing situation. It goes on to say that such provocations could force the GDR "to do everything to rule out any abuse of its territory for purposes endangering peace."
In an address broadcast by RIAS, the West German Minister for All German Affairs, Ernst Lemmer, again vehemently rejects the accusations, contained in the Soviet note of 23 August 1961, that he was the "transport minister for provocateurs, revanchists, extremists, subversive agents and spies of all kinds". He says that the West German government is keeping "the political door open for reunification, despite barbed wire and guard towers. This can only be achieved by guaranteeing the right to self-determination for all Germans."
