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- Socialist East Germany was wracked by poverty and convulsed by labor strikes in response to its new political and economic systems. 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.
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Apr 11, 2024 · In response, East Germany built a barrier to close off East Germans’ access to West Berlin and hence West Germany. That barrier, the Berlin Wall, was first erected on the night of August 12–13, 1961, as the result of a decree passed on August 12 by the East German Volkskammer (“Peoples’ Chamber”).
- West Berlin
West Berlin, the western part of the German city of Berlin,...
- Facts & Related Content
Berlin Wall, barrier that surrounded West Berlin and...
- West Berlin
- 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 of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; West Germany) from 1961 to 1989, separating it from East Berlin and the German Democratic Republic (GDR; East Germany).
- 13 August 1961
- Wall
- 155 km (96.3 mi)
- 9 November 1989 – 1994
People from East Berlin were barred from crossing the wall and entering West Berlin, and the wall was patrolled by armed guards who were ordered to shoot escapees.
Nov 8, 2019 · In the wee hours of August 13, 1961, as Berliners slept, the GDR began building fences and barriers to seal off entry points from East Berlin into the western part of the city. The overnight move...
Nov 8, 2019 · German Democratic Republic officials decided to close the Berlin border for good in 1961, spurred by a spate of defections from refugees who used Berlin’s relatively permeable border to escape...
East Germany closed the borders between East and West Germany and sealed off the border with West Berlin in 1952; but because of the quadripartite Allied status of the city, the 46 km (29 mi)-long sectorial border between East and West Berlin remained open.
