Editing Potsdamer Platz (section)

== The Cold War ==
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-19000-3359, Berlin, britische Spähpanzer.jpg|thumb|Potsdamer Platz in May 1950 – British [[Daimler Armoured Car]]s in front of the House of Tourism ("Haus des Fremdenverkehrs")]]

Meanwhile, friction between the [[Western Bloc|Western Allies]] and Soviets was steadily rising. The Soviets even took to marking out their border by stationing armed soldiers along it at intervals of a few metres, day and night, in all weathers. Since there was not, as yet, a fixed marker, the borders were prone to abuse, which eventually resulted (in August 1948), in white lines in luminous paint appearing across roads and even through ruined buildings to try to deter the Soviets from making unauthorised incursions into the American and British zones. These measures were only partially successful: after further skirmishes in which shots were fired, barbed wire entanglements were stretched across some roads, a foretaste of things to come.

=== The free Berlin press versus the wise Berliner ===
Remembering the [[Nazi propaganda|effective use of propaganda in the leadup to the second World War]], the opposing camps later began berating one another with enormous signs displaying loud political slogans, facing each other across the border zone. That on the western side was erected first, in direct response to the ban on sales of Western newspapers in East Berlin, and comprised an illuminated display board 30 m wide and 1.5 m deep, facing east, supported on three steel lattice towers 25 m high and topped by the words ''DIE FREIE BERLINER PRESSE MELDET'' (The Free Berlin Press Announces). Important messages were spelt out on the display board using up to 2,000 bulbs. The sign was switched on for the first time on 10 October 1950, watched by a large crowd. On 18 November, the Communist authorities in the east ordered its destruction using a catapult made from a compressed air hose loaded with pebbles and small pieces of metal. However, the order was not executed and the sign lasted until 1974, an eventual victim of its own high maintenance costs.

Not to be outdone, East Berlin had meanwhile erected a sign of its own. This was up and running by 25 November 1950, less than seven weeks after its western counterpart, albeit for a much shorter time period. (It was demolished on 29 January 1953.{{Citation needed|date=December 2016}}) Facing towards West Berlin was the proclamation ''DER KLUGE BERLINER KAUFT BEI DER H.O.'' (The Wise Berliner Buys With The [[Handelsorganisation|HO]]) Underneath were the words ''NÄCHSTE VERKAUFSSTELLEN'' (Next Sales Premises), between two arrows pointing left and right, suggesting that large shopping developments were forthcoming in the immediate vicinity, although these never appeared.

What was not apparent from the western side however, was that East Berlin's construction boasted its own illuminated display board facing east, whose messages comprised the version of the news that the Communist authorities in the east wanted their citizens to believe. In addition, the East Berlin sign was carefully placed so that, when viewed from further away down Leipziger Strasse, its display board obscured the West Berlin sign standing beyond it. Over the next two years, West Berlin would regularly raise or lower its sign to make it more easily visible from the East again&nbsp;– and then East Berlin would raise or lower its own construction to obscure it once more.<ref>{{cite web| url = http://www.potsdamer-platz.org:| title = Leuchtschriftanlange – "Die Freie Berliner Presse Meldet" (in German, click on the link)}}</ref> Furthermore, the East German Government also exploited the huge facade of the nearby [[Columbushaus]] as a further propaganda tool.{{Citation needed|date=December 2016}}

=== The 1953 uprising ===
More significantly, living and working conditions in East Germany were rapidly worsening under [[Communist]] rule. Tensions finally reached breaking point and a [[Uprising of 1953 in East Germany|Workers' Uprising]] took place on 17 June 1953, to be quickly and brutally crushed when Soviet tanks rolled in, and some of the worst violence occurred around Potsdamer Platz, where several people were killed by the Volkspolizei.<ref>{{cite web| url = http://www.17juni53.de/tote/index.html| title = 17juni53.de: Tote des 17. Juni 1953 (in German)}}</ref> No one really knows how many people died during the uprising itself, or by the subsequent death sentences. There are 55 known victims,<ref>{{cite web| url = http://www.17juni53.de/tote/recherche.html| title = 17juni53.de: Tote des 17. Juni 1953 (in German)}}</ref> but other estimates state at least 125.<ref>{{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20150201222546/http://17juni1953.com/aufstand.html 17juni53.'''''com''''': Der Volksaufstand (in German)]}}</ref> West German estimates were much higher: in 1966 the West German [[Minister of Intra-German Relations|Ministry for Inter-German Affairs]] claimed that 383 people died in the uprising, including 116 "functionaries of the SED regime", with an additional 106 executed under [[martial law]] or condemned to death, while 1,838 were injured and 5,100 arrested, 1,200 of these sentenced to a total of six thousand years in penal camps. It was also claimed that 17 or 18 Soviet soldiers were executed for refusing to shoot demonstrating workers,<ref>{{cite web| url = http://www.17juni53.de/tote/recherche.html| title = 17juni53.de: Die Opfer des Aufstandes (in German, click on the link)}}</ref> but this remains unconfirmed by post-1990 research.<ref>{{cite web| url = http://www.17juni53.de/tote/magdeburg.html| title = 17juni53.de: Vermeintliche und ungeklärte Todesfälle: Bezirk Magdeburg (in German)}}</ref> Whatever the casualty figures, for the second time in eight years, the "busiest and most famous square in Europe" had been transformed into a bloody battleground. Columbushaus, with its H.O. store on the ground floor and military police station above, had been a prime target in the insurrection and been burnt out yet again, along with the Haus Vaterland and other premises. This time, they were not rehabilitated.

As [[Cold War]] tensions rose still further during the 1950s, restrictions were placed on travel between the Soviet sector ([[East Berlin]]) and the western sectors ([[West Berlin]]). For the second time in its history, the Potsdam Gate (or what remained of it), was like a dividing line between two different worlds. Lying on this invisible frontier, Potsdamer Platz was no longer an important destination for Berliners. Similarly, neither East Berlin nor West Berlin regarded their half as a priority area for redevelopment, seeking instead to distance themselves from the traditional heart of the city and develop two new centres for themselves, well away from the troubled border zone. West Berlin inevitably chose the [[Kurfürstendamm]] and the area around the [[Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church]], while East Berlin built up [[Alexanderplatz]] and turned [[Frankfurter Allee]] (which they renamed [[Stalinallee]] in 1949, [[Karl-Marx-Allee]] in 1961), into their own showpiece boulevard. Potsdamer Platz, meanwhile, was more or less left to rot, as one by one the ruined buildings were cleared away, neither side having the will to repair or replace them. On the western side things did improve with the development of the [[Kulturforum|Cultural Forum]], whose site roughly equates with the former Millionaires' Quarter.