The Berlin Wall Offers Lessons on Why Trump’s Wall Won’t Work

East Germany built a barrier that was only strong for its time and place.

Imagine scrambling over this wall while people shoot at you.

A few weeks ago, I published a piece on some of the great walls of history — and why many of them failed to hold back invasion and infiltration. I received some comments about how the Berlin Wall, which divided Berlin from 1961 to 1989, was an exception, that it worked, and that Trump’s proposed border wall should follow that model.

So let’s explore that particular barrier, which I didn’t cover in my initial piece. For those who need a brief refresher on recent European history: The Berlin Wall was a concrete barrier built by the German Democratic Republic (i.e., East Germany) in order to cut it off from West Germany. In addition to the wall element, its builders included guard towers, barbed wire, and a so-called “death strip” with trenches and other defenses. It was amply manned, with guards more than happy to fill any wall-climbers with generous amounts of lead.

The socialist Eastern Bloc positioned the wall as keeping the decadent imperialists out; but it was also meant to keep East Germans in. If you, an ordinary citizen, decided you wanted a Big Mac and a new life as a capitalist, you needed to either sneak through a checkpoint, or somehow scale the wall. The…