Steinstücken

Steinstücken, a small settlement with approximately 200 inhabitants, is the southernmost territory of the Berlin borough of Steglitz-Zehlendorf. During the division of Germany from 1949 until 1990, Steinstücken was the largest of a number of exclaves of West Berlin, itself a West German exclave, in East German (GDR) territory.

Origin of the enclave

The enclave originated in 1787, when farmers of the nearby village Stolpe acquired plots of land outside of their municipality proper. These lands were settled in the early 19th century. Later Stolpe was incorporated into the municipality of Wannsee, which thus inherited Steinstücken's situation.

In 1920 Wannsee was incorporated into the expansion of Berlin ("Greater Berlin"), which Steinstücken thus became an enclave of. Until 1945 this fact was of little significance; daily life was oriented towards Babelsberg, a suburb of Potsdam, which Steinstücken is geographically located in.

Cold War

At the end of World War II in 1945, Berlin's city boundary became the dividing line between the Soviet zone of Germany and the American sector of Berlin. For the first couple of years, the border still remained open.

The first climax of the Cold War (Berlin Blockade, proclamation of two separate states) turned Berlin's outer boundary into a part of the Iron Curtain, and thus Steinstücken into an island of West Berlin, itself an island, in East Germany.

In 1951, GDR attempted to annex Steinstücken by sending police and military forces into the enclave. After objection by the United States, they withdrew their forces a few days later. After this event, access of the inhabitants into surrounding East Germany was prohibited. From then on their only access to the outside world was through two East German checkpoints and a road of about 1 km length into West Berlin proper. For all their everyday activities (e.g. work, school, shopping, visits of friends and relatives) they had to pass these controls from then on.

After the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961, Steinstücken became the focus of several escape attempts; as a tiny enclave within East German territory it was only demarcated by barbed wire barriers. After more than twenty East German border guards escaped to the west through Steinstücken, the communist regime in East Germany specially built a wall around Steinstücken to cut off this escape route.

Following a visit by Lucius D. Clay in September 21 1961 by helicopter, a US military post was installed in the enclave. Soldiers were regularly flown in by helicopter from then on. Today, a "helicopter memorial" commemorates these circumstances.

The corridor

To eliminate this threat and alleviate this enormous inconvenience to the residents of Steinstücken, a road connecting the settlement to Kohlhasenbrück in West Berlin was built in 1972. This required an exchange of territory between East Germany and West Berlin, which in turn required the approval of the four occupation powers: the Soviet Union, United States, United Kingdom, and France. Following meetings of the Allied Commission, the four powers signed the Four Power Agreement on Berlin ^* on September 3 1971, which lead to a tiny sliver of land connecting West Berlin to Steinstücken becoming part of West Berlin territory. The connecting road was then built on this sliver, allowing Steinstücken residents to cross unimpeded to West Berlin. As the new border enclosed the road on both of its sides, so did the Berlin Wall after East Germany extended it accordingly.

One part of the road, a bridge leading to Steinstücken, caused special problems because the tracks of the Deutsche Reichsbahn, the East German railway, passed under it. East Germany therefore refused to transfer this territory to West Berlin. A compromise was reached in which the bridge and the airspace above it became part of West Berlin, while the airspace and land below the bridge, including the tracks, remained in East German hands. The land transfer and building of the road ended Steinstücken's status as an exclave for all practical purposes, although the fact that the land under the bridge remained in GDR territory leaves the issue open to interpretation.

Fall of the Wall

With the fall of the wall in 1989, the border fortifications were removed, but Steinstücken and the road remain part of Berlin today. In the meantime daily life has normalised and is in contact with its neighourhood in Babelsberg once again. A film revisiting life in Steinstücken aired on Berlin television in September 2005.

External links

enclaves | exclaves | History of Berlin