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Aug 21, 2024 · The Berlin Wall was built by the German Democratic Republic during the Cold War to prevent its population from escaping Soviet-controlled East Berlin to West Berlin, which was controlled by the major Western Allies. It divided the city of Berlin into two physically and ideologically contrasting zones.
- West Berlin
West Berlin, the western part of the German city of Berlin,...
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Berlin Wall, barrier that surrounded West Berlin and...
- West Berlin
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- The Berlin Wall: The Partitioning of Berlin
- The Berlin Wall: Blockade and Crisis
- The Berlin Wall: Building The Wall
- The Berlin Wall: 1961-1989
- The Berlin Wall: The Fall of The Wall
As World War II came to an end in 1945, a pair of Allied peace conferences at Yalta and Potsdam determined the fate of Germany’s territories. They split the defeated nation into four “allied occupation zones”: The eastern part of the country went to the Soviet Union, while the western part went to the United States, Great Britain and (eventually) F...
The existence of West Berlin, a conspicuously capitalist city deep within communist East Germany, “stuck like a bone in the Soviet throat,” as Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev put it. The Russians began maneuvering to drive the United States, Britain and France out of the city for good. In 1948, a Soviet blockade of West Berlin aimed to starve the w...
That night, Premier Khrushchev gave the East German government permission to stop the flow of emigrants by closing its border for good. In just two weeks, the East German army, police force and volunteer construction workers had completed a makeshift barbed wire and concrete block wall–the Berlin Wall–that divided one side of the city from the othe...
The construction of the Berlin Wall did stop the flood of refugees from East to West, and it did defuse the crisis over Berlin. (Though he was not happy about it, President John F. Kennedy conceded that “a wall is a hell of a lot better than a war.”) Almost two years after the Berlin Wall was erected, John F. Kennedy delivered one of the most famou...
On November 9, 1989, as the Cold Warbegan to thaw across Eastern Europe, an East German Communist Party spokesman announced a series of new policies regarding border crossings. When pressed on when the changes would take place, he said “As far as I know... effective immediately, without delay.” East Berliners flocked to border checkpoints, some cha...
The Berlin Wall (German: Berliner Mauer, pronounced [bɛʁˌliːnɐ ˈmaʊɐ] ⓘ) was a guarded concrete barrier that encircled West Berlin from 1961 to 1989, separating it from East Berlin and the German Democratic Republic (GDR; East Germany).
Aug 12, 2021 · Although housing and utilities were regulated by the East German state, many felt that life there was oppressive, and longed for the freedom offered by West Germany. By the early 1950s, people began emigrating – and later fleeing – East Germany in search of a new, better life.
- Sarah Roller
Nov 8, 2019 · The brain drain and worker shortage that resulted prompted the GDR to close its border with West Germany in 1952, making it much harder for people to cross from “Communist” to “free” Europe.
Aug 17, 2024 · Between August 12 and 13, 1961, the Communist government of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) began to erect a barrier to prevent East Berliners from migrating to the sector of the city controlled by the Western powers. The so-called Berlin Wall became the embodiment of the Iron Curtain.
Aug 11, 2020 · Professor Patrick Major explores the history of the Berlin Wall: why it was built, how many people were killed trying to cross it and its significance today
