When the Berlin Wall was built with a few railway cars and a lot of barbed wire in August 1961, no one could have foreseen its rise and fall. In this feature-length special, HISTORY uses computer imagery to reconstruct how the wall grew from a meager obstacle to a mighty barrier of seven concentric walls with ditches, fences, signal wires, tank-traps and a flood-lit death strip patrolled by half-starved dogs a nearly impenetrable barricade with a 96-mile circumference, 200-plus bunkers and 302 watchtowers. RISE AND FALL OF THE BERLIN WALL gets firsthand accounts from the people who tried to escape this Wall of Death by any means possible, including tunnels, hot air balloons, wind surfing boats, bi-planes and a cable railway. Additional interviews with the security officials who designed the wall and Stasi men who protected it, border guards, politicians, historians and journalists help to breathe life into the Cold War icon whose demise, beginning on November 9, 1989, signaled the start of one of history s most dramatic political transformations.