How Did We Build The Berlin Wall

On Sunday, August 13, 1969 East Germany blocked off East Berlin from West Berlin with barbed wire. A few days later the Berlin Wall was built to replace the barbed wire. From 1961 to 1981, there were 37,800 successful escapes across the Berlin wall from the East to the West. The reunification of Germany took place on October 3, 1990.

The cold war started in 1947 between the USSR and the USA.The berlin wall was one of the most significant symbols in relations to the cold war. Although the wall was a crucial factor that helped in bypassing what could have turned out to be world war three, many would agree that it impacted on the lives of german citizens in both positive and negative ways. People had their families split up because of the wall and there were also very limited supplies getting into west berlin due to the blockade.

Due to the Berlin wall families were divided, and no physical connection was able to be made from each side. Jobs from the East and West side of Berlin were cut off. The reason given to the East Berliners for putting the wall up was too, put off aggression from the West, even though the wall pointed inward to East German territory. During the wall's 30 year history, unstable and varying reports claim that either 192 or 239 people were killed trying to cross the wall. Interestingly enough, through the wall's 30 year history there were roughly 5000 successful escapes into West Berlin.

When the Soviets started to notice that their best citizens (like doctors, scientists, and other citizens that play an important part of society) were moving to West Berlin, they decided to put an end to it. They did so by constructing an 11 foot tall wall between East and West Berlin on August 13th, 1961.

On August 15, 1961, Communists began building a wall to keep Germans from escaping Communist-controlled East Berlin to West Democratic Berlin. There were guards, electric barbed wired fences, and of course the twelve foot concrete wall that prevented Germans from escaping. After the wall was built many Germans still tried to flee the west but not all were successful. The East Berlin Germans were now under total dictatorship of the Soviets. Many United States Presidents traveled to Berlin to share their views on democracy with the Communists, but the Communist weren’t persuaded. In 1987,

Following the fall of the Third Reich at the end of WWII Germany was split between east and west into two different countries. In the east the German Democratic Republic was under communist rule and was supported by the Soviet Union. The Federal German Republic was a democracy that was part of NATO. As part of the division of Germany following WWII, Berlin, the capital of Germany was divided evenly between the two nations. However, the entire city of Berlin was deep inside of the GDR, so the Western half of the city was democratic but it was surrounded by communist territory. This made West Berlin a place where many East Germans would try to escape to. As a result of this the German Democratic Republic built a wall surrounding West Berlin to stop its own people from escaping to freedom.

Berlin Wall - On August 13, 1961, the Communist government of the German Democratic Republic (GDR, or East Germany) began to build a barbed wire and concrete “Antifaschistischer Schutzwall,” or “anti fascist bulwark,” between East and West Berlin.

After the defeat of Hitler, Germany was in 4 sections.The U.S.A., United Kingdom, France, and the Soviet Union all had a portion of Germany.In 1961, Germany’s capital, Berlin, had a hard time.East Berlin’s government did not agree with the West side.That was when the Berlin Wall was built.The German Democratic Republic(GDR)was the reason for the separation of the city.The East side was bad and the West side was good or more free.To go to the other side, there were checkpoints you had to cross.”Checkpoint Charlie”, the most famous checkpoint, was one of them.

Stalin’s control of East Germany produced nothing but poor living conditions. With the Allies managing West Germany, the state prospered and attracted many people of East Germany for the job opportunities provided. Stalin did not see West Germany as the people did and resurrected a wall in the dead of night between August 12th and 13th, 1961, separating families with no warning. There were four versions of the wall, each built to be stronger than the last. As Coldwar.org stated in their Berlin Wall timeline, the final one was twelve feet high of concrete and almost four feet thick, topped with a steel pipe and barbed wire. Men in over a hundred and fifteen watchtowers guarded from people crossing over the wall, several hundred of whom died. The Berlin Wall served as a constant reminder to the western world of the hand of communism. Yet, through all of the threats, the American people held faith that the military would protect them from communism. Americans of the 1980’s thrived on a patriotism for their free country and did not fear The Iron

The Berlin Wall had a major impact on humanity’s views on how society should be ruled. Berlin is the capital of Germany. After the ending of WWII, Berlin was split up into East Berlin, and West Berlin. East Berlin was communist, suffered from the repressions of the Communist Party. West Berlin had a better lifestyle, and had financial aid from the United States. From the years between nineteen forty-nine to nineteen sixty-one, approximately 2.5 million people from East Berlin escaped to West Berlin. This toll included skilled workers, professionals, and intellectuals. Because of the loss of these people, the economy in East Berlin was threatened. On August twelve-thirteen, nineteen sixty-one, the Berlin was built in order to stop the people of East Berlin from fleeing. The Berlin wall was a major point during the Cold War, and many opposed it. It gave another reason to detest communism.

In 1961 there was a wall build with barbed wire to separate the east and the west in Berlin. This resulted in a riot from the citizens who proceeded to attack offices, military officials, and threw rocks at military vehicles like tanks and cargo trucks. The people of Berlin were outraged, people were forced away from their friends and family and were not allowed to cross the border of the wall because Khrushchev wanted to gain control of the entirety of Germany.

Secondly, many security measures were put into place to stop people from crossing from one side of the wall to the other. For example, Berliner Mauer website states, “Floodlights hung high illuminated the strip of sand that was supposed to reveal the footprints of would-be

The Soviet Union in conjunction with East German authorities started constructing the Berlin Wall in 1961. This wall separated East and West Berlin. East Germany, desiring to prove to the world that Marxism and communism were viable systems for running a country, decided to keep its citizens from fleeing to the West,. The Wall failed to accomplish this, and fell on November 9, 1989. This was a key moment that marked the end of the Cold War. While the Wall was still up, many problems persisted between the eastern and western parts of Germany. In many ways, East and West Germany were polar opposites. The Berlin Wall was symbolic of the political, economic, and ideological divisions that existed between East and West Germany.

Along with the separate and much longer inner German border, the Berlin Wall became to symbolize a physical marker of the Iron Curtain that separated Western Europe and the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War. The Berlin Wall was the guarded concrete barrier that physically and ideologically divided Berlin from 1961 to 1989. The wall was constructed by the German Democratic Republic (GDR), which was communist, and it cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin, who wasn't communist. They started building the wall on 13th of August 1961. The barrier was a large concrete wall with guard towers along it.

The wall wasn't built at one, during its evolution if I must say the wall went trough 4 major transformations. From: first Barbed wire fence with concrete poles, second Concrete blocks topped with barbed wire, third Concrete wall supported by steel beams and finally Concrete slabs with a smooth pipe across the top. The wall was well fortified and surveillance was constant It has many watchtowers, electrify wire and many guards who were well equipped to stop the citizen from forcing their way out of east Germany. Many citizens had their family and friends who lived in West Berlin and before the wall, they had the freedom to go see them and with the wall, this was no longer possible. While the wall made it difficult to cross the border, thousands still risk everything even their life to do so. Some strategy used was: secret tunnels, fake guards uniforms, or simply jumping over the wall. The wall situation and the political crisis, which resulted from it, attracted the media and made everything public to the