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Fleeing to the British Sector under Fire from the Garrisoned People’s Police (June 17, 1953)

On June 16, 1953, East Berlin construction workers marched from their work sites on the Stalinallee and from the Friedrichshain hospital toward the House of the Ministries (at the corner of Wilhelmstraße and Leipziger Straße) in protest against increases in production quotas without corresponding wage increases. There the crowd, which had grown to about 10,000 people, expressed its displeasure and demanded that the government be dissolved and free elections held. The police did not attempt to stop this demonstration. Obviously encouraged, tens of thousands of demonstrators assembled in the streets of East Berlin and in front of the House of the Ministries the next morning on June 17. This time, the Garrisoned People's Police [Kasernierte Volkspolizei], deployed to protect the House of the Ministries, repelled the crowd with rubber batons and warning shots. Soviet tanks rolled into East Berlin and the Soviet commandant declared martial law. Many of the demonstrators fled down the Leipziger Straße and over the Potsdamer Platz into the adjacent British sector. As word of the protests in East Berlin spread, one million citizens throughout East Germany, in more than 700 localities, went on strike and took to the streets demanding comprehensive political and social reforms. In the course of the violent repression of the uprising, thousands of protesters were arrested and many were killed. Although the exact number of victims is unknown, estimates in recent literature range from 55 to 300 deaths. Photographer unknown.