How tall was the Berlin Wall?

The Berlin Wall was about 11–13 feet tall, with the final concrete sections measuring approximately 3.6 meters, or 11.8 feet.

Its height was not perfectly uniform because the barrier changed over time and included several kinds of fencing, walls, and security structures. The earliest barriers erected in August 1961 were relatively improvised, while later generations became taller and more heavily engineered. The fourth-generation wall, built from the mid-1970s, is the source of the commonly quoted figure of roughly 12 feet.

The wall was not a single uninterrupted slab. It formed part of a fortified border system containing a second wall or fence, watchtowers, patrol routes, lighting, and the guarded “death strip.” These defenses encircled West Berlin and extended for roughly 156 kilometers in total.

East German authorities began sealing the border on August 13, 1961, to stop people leaving East Germany through West Berlin. The wall fell politically on November 9, 1989, after 28 years of dividing families, neighborhoods, and a city at the center of the Cold War.