The Wall, and which way the guns pointed
3.5 million left before 1961 — then the barrier went up, aimed inward.
The Wall is the whole argument compressed into concrete: it was built because, given the choice, people left.
What happened
Between 1949 and 1961 roughly 3.5 million people — disproportionately young and skilled — left East Germany for the West. The state could not sustain the loss. In August 1961 the Berlin Wall went up, and the shoot-to-kill order applied to citizens trying to leave.
The results
At least 140 people died at the Berlin Wall and around a thousand more along the wider inner-German border. The Wall worked as an economic instrument: it stopped the bleeding of labour. It also stood as the most compact admission in the whole record — that given the choice, the people governed by this system walked out.
Why it happened
The Wall was built because the system could not survive a vote taken with people's feet. Every state controls who comes in; the GDR aimed its border at its own citizens trying to get out. That is the physical confession of a government that has lost the argument and decided to win it with concrete and rifles instead.