In Germany the Inner German border actually has a significant role in the collective memory besides the Wall in Berlin. There were more deaths at the Inner German border than at the Berlin Wall including West-Germans killed by mines or GDR-troops. For example the first border-victim ever was the West-German journalist and communist politician Kurt Lichtenstein who was shot in 1961. For many West-Germans the “deutsch-deutsche Grenze” was a part of everyday life but still a daily reminder of the German partition, so I would tend to say that it is pretty significant in Germany itself. This is also apparent in the sheer number of research projects, memorials, popular movies and documentaries dedicated to the Inner German border.

Nevertheless from an international standpoint and in fact a contemporary standpoint the Inner German border is – like you stated – overshadowed by the popular role of the Berlin Wall. I find it hard to give a defined answer to your question but as a historian who works on collective memory and German history I would suggest to look at Berlins special role in German history or rather the “Cold War” and were the Inner German border started to collapse.

Berlin used to be Germanys capital before the country was divided and it became its capital again in 1991. After 1949 East-Berlin has been the capital of the GDR and the city was one of the main focus points in the “Cold War” (1st and 2nd Berlin-Crisis, the Berlin Wall etc). Berlin was the West’s enclave right in the middle of East-Germanys heart and because of this it was used for propaganda reasons. The FRG actually pumped billions of Mark into West-Berlin and subsidized companies to settle there – with often limited success. Western politicians also staged Berlin’s special role right from the beginning (from Kennedy’s “Ich bin ein Berliner” to Reagan’s “Tear down this wall”) so it became the West’s frontier in the “Eastern Bloc” and one of the focal point in the East-West-Conflict.

Besides all of that when the Inner German border finally and famously collapsed it was right in Berlin at the Berlin Wall. The first border crossing to open completely was Bornholmer Straße in Berlin, the other crossings in Berlin opening shorty after. It is funny because some other border crossings at the Inner German Border like Selmsdorf/Lübeck-Schlutup in Schleswig-Holstein opened at the same time but the cameras were focused on Berlin. Because of that we can all remember or at least know the pictures of people crossing the checkpoints in Berlin, sitting on the Berlin Wall later in the same night and in the next days, even starting to tear it down themselves etc. In our collective memories these pictures of the wall’s end resemble the end of Germany’s partition.

I think the second part of my answer is perhaps more significant than the first: Historical meaning is of course always attributed in retrospect so the pictures of the Berlin Wall “collapsing” – and with that the collapse of the Inner German border – shape our collective memory of the whole border itself. Perhaps the Berlin Wall is more popular than the Inner German border because we saw it coming down and can all remember its end. (Even if we are too young to have witnessed it ourselves)

Can someone educate me on the Inner German border? Surely you couldn't just walk out of Berlin, into the countryside, and then to West Germany, but since Berlin was surrounded by East German, how did this work? Was there an umbilical road that counted as "West Germany", or did you leave West Berlin into East German, and then back into West Germany again?