The idea of a sealed research facility is a good one, but the tech of the era wasn't quite up to it and the need to start construction was seen as a highest priority.
The patrol teams do carry flame throwers on the patrol vehicles and the checkpoints at the wall pass through points (which are man traps) all have a LAV with a larger flame unit and of course much larger fuel tank assigned. The goal of the security force is, of course, to catch the suicidal idiots on the way into the Dead Zone.
There is, as folks have noted, a huge conspiracy theory industry built around the Berlin and Nuremberg Zones, aided by the ATL version of the WWW. Apparently the Wall is actually meant to hold in monster lizards, snakes, rats the size of buffalo, etc. or even mutated humans/zombies. Other claim that there are anything from Space Aliens to to a reborn Nazi State in some sort of cave complexes below Berlin. This is despite the fact that every citizen of every German statelet is required, under both local law and international treaty to make a minimum of three "field trips" to the Zones (5th Grade, 9th Grade, and just before leaving Gymnasium) with the last two including trips up to the specifically built observation towers that "allow" everyone to see the moonscape with their own Mark 1, Mod 0 eyes. There is also a bizarre tourist industry that has sprung up related to the Wall, with well heeled tourists from not just the U.S. & Canada, but also from Mexico, Brazil and Argentina making the Wall a major stop on the "battlefield" tours that follow the course of their respective combat forces from the Final Phase.
