death strip
Fortified no-man's-land barrier
The death strip was the heavily fortified zone between the two parallel walls of the Berlin Wall, designed to prevent East Germans from escaping to the West.
It featured guard towers, floodlights, anti-vehicle trenches, and a raked sand surface to reveal footprints.
The term now applies to any similarly militarized buffer zone: the death strip along the Korean DMZ.
- Berlin WallCold War partition
- concrete wallRigid masonry partition
- East BerlinCommunist-controlled German capital
- West BerlinIsolated Allied occupation zone
- no man's landUnowned space between enemies
kill zone · border · watchtower · minefield · barbed wire · Cold War · escape · East Germany · patrol · guards · concrete · forbidden zone · shooting · escape attempt · surveillance · division · Iron Curtain · barrier
death stripsafe passage
Protected transit through danger
safe corridor · safe zone · humanitarian corridor · escape route · sanctuary
death strippedestrian walkway
Path reserved for walkers
escape route · passage · thoroughfare · gateway · checkpoint