After putting up the wall in 1961 they had a lot of security towers to patrol the wall. They did that so no one would climb over the wall and cross the border. If they get caught they get shot. Over 80 people died crossing the wall and 140 around the wall, and Peter Fechter was the first. Peter was born 1944, around a year before WW2 ended, he was roughly 18 years old when he died trying to cross the wall to see family. (1944-1962). He was a young boy who lost his job and his family because of the wall. He was crossing to see his family and to have a better life on the other side of the wall with his family. While crossing he got shot.
Graph of how many deaths were recorded while crossing the wall. Statista.com Political cartoon. Pintrist.com
After the wall went up in 1961, the East and West Berlin sides were very different. The West was the wealthy side of Berlin, everyone had a job and a family to take care of even though the wall was up. Every person with a job on the Westside would have enough money to take care of themselves and their family because all the jobs on the West would give them good money for working. The Eastside had very poor people. The East had people who would try to go over the wall to have a better life in the West. Most of the people couldn't pay for their homes, so most of the people were homeless. When the Berlin Wall was up the west would drop in supplies and food to the other side. This helped to sustain the over 2 million people on the west side. This showed that the west was willing to work with the East, and to do so they would risk going into the soviet territory to do so.