On August 13th of 1961, the infamous Berlin Wall was built. The barbed wire and concrete separated Berlin into two different zones; East and West Berlin. This wall stood as an iconic symbol of the Cold War. This wall created pain, sorrow, and suffering for all Germans. Over a long 28 years of the standing Berlin Wall, the concrete that divided Europe stood through the rigorous tensions of political and physical war. After WWII, Germany was split up into 4 different zones ruled by different…
What was the Berlin Wall? The Berlin Wall was a wall that divided Berlin from the year 1961 until the year 1989. It was a barrier. It did not just separate the people physical, it was also a symbolic boundary between Communism and Democracy during the Cold War. The German Democratic Republic, also known as the GDR, was behind the creation of the Berlin Wall. Until 1961, West German citizens were able to travel to East Berlin. On August 13, 1961 the German Communist Government began to build a…
Anna Funder’s literary journalist text Stasiland explores the lingering impact that the former German Democratic Republic had upon its citizens. Through investigating the struggles faced by individuals in rebuilding their lives within unified Germany, Funder acknowledges that the horrors of the GDR are still controlling those who once lived under its communist regime. Through the victims Funder interviews, she identifies that as East Germany is rebuilt, so too are its people, as they attempt to…
Therefore leading up to the decision to construct the Berlin Wall. In 1949 and 1961, there were about two and a half million East Germans that had fled from East to West Germany. Many of those people were skilled workers and had traveled to West Germany for work. It was on August 13, 1961, when the Communist government of the German Democratic Republican started to build a barbed wire and concrete Antifaschistischer or wall in between East and West Berlin. Due to this, August 13th, 1961, was…
The history of the Berlin Wall was ignited by World War II. Germany plotted an attack on Poland, yet was intimidated by the fact that the Soviet Union might interfere. So, before raiding Poland, Hitler made sure to sign a non-aggression pact with the U.S.S.R. This pact secretly stated that Poland should be divided between Germany and the Soviet Union, with Germany receiving the western third, while the Soviets gained control of the remaining two-thirds. Germany began their attacks on Poland on…
known to many as The Berlin Wall. It became a significant symbol that represented all of those things depending on which side of the wall you were on. The events leading up to the building and destruction of the wall were very important to not only the Germans, but also to the whole world. The wall itself was a very complex security system and claimed many lives of those who tried to flee from East Berlin to West Berlin. When World War II was winding down, Russia claimed Berlin as a spoil of…
The Berlin Wall On August 13, 1961 the Berlin Wall had been placed; Berlins demise was now imminent. The Berlin Wall was a major result of Cold War tensions. “From the 1940s on Germany itself had become a monster of the communist-capitalist conflict. It divided West Germany into the ‘Federal Republic of Germany’ and the smaller East Germany the ‘German Democratic Republic’.”(Taylor,1) It divided a city from the outer world and completely separated family and friends. At the end of World…
Berliner’, a speech by John F. Kennedy on the Berlin Wall, has been delivered on the 26th of June 1963 in the west of Berlin. The Belin Wall was built in 1961 and divided Berlin in East and West Berlin. The east of Berlin and also the east of Europe, was controlled by the soviet Union and the west of Berlin was controlled by the Allies. The Soviet-union built the Berlin Wall to prevent people from the east to move to the west of Europe. Before the Berlin Wall many people moved away from the…
a powerful and emotional speech in west Berlin, Germany. This speech was addressing the Berlin Wall, and all of the political issues that came with it. 26 years prior to Reagan’s speech, the Berlin wall was built to separate the communist East from the “Allied” west, this wall was extremely controversial and kept any people from leaving west Berlin without great difficulty. Reagan’s speech had immense impact on Berlin, 2 years after his speech, the Berlin Wall was taken down and both East and…
apart by two superpowers fighting for control of the world. This city becomes a symbol of the split between two very different worlds. That is what the city of Berlin, Germany was during the Cold War, a competition between the Capitalist United States of America and the Communist Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, or the Soviet Union. Berlin became a symbol of what the Cold War was doing to the world. Husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, entire families were severed apart by the two…