Crossing the militarized border that split Germany into east and west once meant risking death ... meeting Kai Frobel, close to the old border.Credit...Laetitia Vancon for The New York Times ...

Some time in the next quarter-hour, the plane somehow veered 60° east off course ... in a ponderous effort to make it back to the West German border 22 miles away. But now there were six MIGs ...

You only have to look at a map ... the US. West Germany was a capitalist democracy with a prosperous economy, while East Germany was a communist country with a very poor economy. The border ...

East Germany closed the border in Berlin on Aug. 13, 1961, and expanded the Wall into an increasingly elaborate fortification snaking through the city and around the capitalist enclave of West Berlin.