In the early morning hours of August 13, 1961, East German soldiers began tearing up streets and installing barbed wire fences to seal off West Berlin from the East. This was the beginning of the Berlin Wall, which the East German government called the 'Anti-Fascist Protective Rampart.' The primary goal was to stop the massive 'brain drain' of East Germans fleeing to the democratic West; between 1949 and 1961, roughly 2.5 million people had escaped. The initial wire fences were quickly replaced by a complex system of concrete walls, watchtowers, and a 'death strip' of mines and sand. For 28 years, the wall stood as the physical embodiment of the Iron Curtain, separating families and serving as a constant flashpoint of Cold War tension until its sudden fall in 1989.