Inner German border in the context of Draconian constitution

The Berlin Wall (German: Berliner Mauer, pronounced [bɛʁˌliːnɐ ˈmaʊɐ] ), officially the Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart, was a guarded concrete barrier that encircled West Berlin from 1961 to 1989, separating it from East Berlin and the German Democratic Republic (GDR; East Germany). Construction of the Berlin Wall was commenced by the government of the GDR on 13 August 1961. It included guard towers placed along large concrete walls, accompanied by a wide area (later known as the "death strip") that contained anti-vehicle trenches, beds of nails and other defenses. The primary intention for the Wall's construction was to prevent East German citizens from fleeing to the West.

The Soviet Bloc propaganda portrayed the Wall as protecting its population from "fascist elements conspiring to prevent the will of the people" from building a communist state in the GDR. The authorities officially referred to the Berlin Wall as the Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart (German: Antifaschistischer Schutzwall, pronounced [antifaˌʃɪstɪʃɐ ˈʃʊtsval] ). Conversely, West Berlin's city government sometimes referred to it as the "Wall of Shame", a term coined by mayor Willy Brandt in reference to the Wall's restriction on freedom of movement. Along with the separate and much longer inner German border, which demarcated the border between East and West Germany, it came to symbolize physically the Iron Curtain that separated the Western Bloc and Soviet satellite states of the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War.

The fall of inner German border, also known as the opening of the inner German border (German: Öffnung der innerdeutschen Grenze), rapidly and unexpectedly occurred in November 1989, along with the fall of the Berlin Wall. The event paved the way for the ultimate reunification of Germany just short of a year later.

Bundesautobahn 2 (translates from German as Federal Motorway 2, short form Autobahn 2, abbreviated as BAB 2 or A 2) is an autobahn in Germany that connects the Ruhr area in the west to Berlin in the east. The A 2 starts at the junction with the A3 near the western city of Oberhausen, passes through the north of the Ruhr valley, through the Münsterland and into Ostwestfalen, crossing the former inner German border and continuing through the Magdeburger Börde to merge into the Berliner Ring shortly before reaching Berlin. Major cities such as Magdeburg, Braunschweig, Hannover and Dortmund are situated very close to the A 2. The A 2 is one of the most important autobahns, connecting several large industrial areas with each other.

The A 2 was modified in the late 1990s, and completely rebuilt in the former East Germany. All of the A 2 has 3 travel lanes and a breakdown lane in each direction.

Eisenach (German pronunciation: [ˈaɪzənax] ) is a town in Thuringia, Germany with 42,000 inhabitants, 50 kilometres (31 miles) west of Erfurt, 70 km (43 miles) southeast of Kassel and 150 km (93 miles) northeast of Frankfurt. It is the main urban centre of western Thuringia, and bordering northeastern Hessian regions, is near the former Inner German border. A major attraction is Wartburg castle, which has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1999.

Eisenach was an early capital of Thuringia in the 12th and 13th centuries. St. Elizabeth lived at the court of the Ludowingians here between 1211 and 1228. Later Martin Luther came to Eisenach and translated the Bible into German. In 1685 Johann Sebastian Bach was born here. During the early modern period Eisenach was a residence of the Ernestine Wettins and was visited by numerous representatives of Weimar classicism like Johann Wolfgang Goethe. In 1869 the SDAP, one of the two precursors of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), was founded in Eisenach.

Erich Ernst Paul Honecker (German: [ˈeːʁɪç ˈhɔnɛkɐ]; 25 August 1912 – 29 May 1994) was a German communist politician who led the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) from 1971 until shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989. He held the posts of General Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) and Chairman of the National Defence Council; in 1976, he replaced Willi Stoph as Chairman of the State Council, the official head of state. As the leader of East Germany, Honecker was viewed as a dictator. During his leadership, the country had close ties to the Soviet Union, which maintained a large army in the country.

Honecker's political career began in the 1930s when he became an official of the Communist Party of Germany, a position for which he was imprisoned by the Nazis. Following World War II, he was freed by the Soviet army and relaunched his political activities, founding the SED's youth organisation, the Free German Youth, in 1946 and serving as the group's chairman until 1955. As the Security Secretary of the SED Central Committee, he was the prime organiser of the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961 and, in this function, bore administrative responsibility for the "order to fire" along the Wall and the larger inner German border.

A divided family is a close family unit or people of the wider family who are separated from each other by borders of one or more countries and are therefore temporarily or permanently not able to live together. The reasons for the separation is usually political conflict or family members are given citizenships of different countries. For example, the division of the Korean peninsula and the division of Germany through the inner German border divided families through political conflicts. Both cases were caused by a rearrangement of national boundaries.

However, families can also be divided if national boundaries remain unchanged, but instead groups of people or individuals are moved, forced to leave or flee. Forced displacement such as flight from persecution, violence or a severe lack of public order can be causes of divided families. For example, over 100,000 unaccompanied minors applied for asylum in other countries in 2015. Other examples are population transfer, third country resettlement and deportation. Many countries offer programmes for family reunification that allows divided families to live together again.

The Helmstedt–Marienborn border crossing (German: Grenzübergang Helmstedt-Marienborn), named Grenzübergangsstelle Marienborn (GÜSt) (border crossing Marienborn) by the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was the largest and most important border crossing on the Inner German border during the division of Germany. Due to its geographical location, allowing for the shortest land route between West Germany and West Berlin, most transit traffic to and from West Berlin used the Helmstedt-Marienborn crossing. Most travel routes from West Germany to East Germany and Poland also used this crossing. The border crossing existed from 1945 to 1990 and was situated near the East German village of Marienborn at the edge of the Lappwald. The crossing interrupted the Bundesautobahn 2 (A 2) between the junctions Helmstedt-Ost and Ostingersleben.

An area denial weapon is a war offensive and defensive device used to prevent an adversary from occupying or traversing an area of land, sea or air. The specific method may not be totally effective in preventing passage, but is sufficient to severely restrict, slow down, or endanger the opponent. Some area denial weapons pose risks to civilians entering the area even long after combat has ended, and consequently are often controversial.An area denial weapon can be part of an anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) strategy.