Negative Speech : The Fall Of The Berlin Wall

The East German Government wanted to stop the incoming immigrants from crossing into Eastern Germany. The wall started as a thrown together as a block wall with barbed wire on the top. The temporary wall was replaced by a concert wall that was 4ft wide and 12 ft wall. Close to two hundred people lost their lives attempting to cross over. The wall was finally taken down in 1989.

The German Communist Party began restricting East German's ability to travel to the West in 1949 (Levy 13). Germany's Eastern government installed barbed wire and minefields fields along the border of East and West Germany. However, Eastern Germans' still found a way to escape to the western side of Germany. The most popular way of escape was known as the five-cent subway ride to freedom. There was a subway system in Berlin that linked it's Eastern and Western sides together. For five cents, eastern Germans' would take the train from East Germany to West Germany. Then that person would slip through the border or take a plane or bus out. According to Debbie Levy, during the first six months of 1961, 160,000 Germans had escaped from the East to the West. From 1949 to 1961, more than three million Germans had escaped from the East to the West. This upset the Soviet Officials in charge of Germany very much. Half of the people escaping East Germany were under 25, and three-quarters were under 45. The people escaping included: 16,000 engineers, 5,000 doctors, dentists, and veterinaries, 1,000 university professors and lecturers, and 15,000 high school and elementary teachers. The

German authorities began building the wall to permanently close off any access to the West. Half

The Berlin Wall had been in place for 26 years. Increasing unrest was occurring in Berlin, and at this crucial time Ronald Reagan, as several presidents had done before him, traveled to the Brandenburg Gate, seen by most as the symbolical center of the wall. On June 12, 1987, he then spoke of peace between the USSR and the Western world, while motivating Berliners to help take down the wall and come together as a nation once more. Throughout the speech “Remarks at the Brandenburg Gate”, by Ronald Reagan, he makes use of imagery as well as appeals to ethos and pathos to incite the German people to rise up and destroy the Berlin Wall, reunifying Germany.

The number of trained professionals in particular threatened the economy of East Germany. The Wall changed this. It did stop the flow of people West, but imprisoned the ones living in the west.

November 1989, was the day the East German guards opened the gates, and celebrations continued for days to

After World War II, Germany and Berlin were controlled by four major powers, US, Britain, France and Russia. Many people fled from the east side, which Russia controlled, because they did not like being under the rule of the Soviet Union and communism. Over 2 million people fled over the course of the years 1949-1959. Russia did not like how people were leaving their side of Berlin, so they built a wall. This wall started out as a barbed wire fence that later was made into a 15 feet high and 4 feet wide wall made of concrete blocks.

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,

The Berlin Wall, built in August of 1961, was s physical symbol of the political and emotional divisions of Germany.

The Berlin Wall is a historical symbol of the Cold War and the fall of the Berlin Wall is a symbol of the end of the Cold War. And also, the Berlin Wall played a great role in the life of millions of people and defined the fate of German people, which put them apart by the Wall for a long period of time. Sixteen years after the end of World War II, the communist government of East Germany began building a wall on (August 13, 1961), that would divide the city of Berlin into East Berlin and West Berlin. The purpose was to keep fascists from entering East Germany, but mostly to keep West German citizens, primarily people of valuable professions such as doctors, teachers and engineers, from Changing side to the West. People of Berlin Called the wall Schandmaur, which actually means " The wall of shame". Over the years of the wall being constructed it took at least 3x times to rebuild it, but each time bigger than the last one.

The Berlin Wall was erected the night of August 13th 1961. Before the Berlin Wall was built it was a border but without warning in the middle of the night they closed all borders so no one could cross. The border was soon turned in a 3 layered wall. The length of the wall was 96 miles with 302 watchtowers. The wall wrapped around East Germany. East Germany had erected the wall to prevent people from running away from there to West Berlin. People that lived in the east were running away to the west because Stalin was in power and he was trying to make East Berlin turn into a communist country. About 2.6 million people were able to able to escape to live a better life in the west but that was only about 30% of the population. For the other people who were not able to escape, they were forced to stay there since the border was turned into a barrier known as The Berlin Wall. No one

On June 17, 1953 the workers of East Germany were fed up, and they started a riot. By noon the riots had escalated and the workers from East Germany were marching through the Brandenburg Gate into West Germany with intension to combine with workers from West Germany. All of this came to an end when the Soviet Union called in tanks, and other troops, to take care of the riots. The Soviet tanks shot into the crowds of people killing many, and injuring many others, they even shot into the crowds in West Germany that were rioting ( Schulze ). The people of East Germany realized that they were trapped in East Germany, and if they wanted out they would have to risk their lives in doing so. In the late 1950’s approximately 8,000 to 10,000 people from East Germany left and each day they would move further and further west. More than half of the emigrants between 1949 and 1961 were under the age of 24. For people under 60 years old, lawful emigration was not easy ( Encarta ). Legal processes were lengthy and difficult, and they were eventually successful in discouraging the young people from leaving the country. However, emigration for the elderly was no problem since they had no big role in the growth of the Communist State. East Germany did not have any ideas on how to stop all the people from leaving in groups, until a person came up with an idea to build a wall so high, and so booby-trapped that no one would try to get over the wall.

After the wall had been torn down, besides the new ability to freely travel, the Washington Post explained the effects, “it was really a process that took several months, a process that consisted of the physical deconstruction of the wall, countless changes in people’s daily routines, and a mental shift — which was perhaps the biggest hurdle of all,” (Fisher). The Imperial War Museums said, “Germany reunited on 3 October 1990, 11 months after the fall of the Berlin Wall,” (What Was the Berlin Wall and How Did It Fall?). The Wall Street Journal added, “the policies rushed into play to restore the unified nation are largely seen as a success, if an expensive one, that paved the way for Germany to take the stage as Europe’s political and economic centerpiece,” (Roth).

The European spokesman announced a change in his city’s relations with West Berlin. At midnight on that same day citizens of the GDR were free to cross the borders. Both East and West Berliner flocked to the wall, they drank beer, and also chanted “Tor Auf!” The German phrase “Tor Auf” means “open the gates.” After midnight they flooded through checkpoints. More than two million people from East Berlin got to visit West Berlin that weekend and got to participate in the celebration. One journalist wrote “Wall Woodpeckers,” as a joke to say about Berliners who waited at the wall until it finally fell down.

On June 12, 1987 President Ronald Reagan gave his speech “Tear Down this Wall,” in Brandenburg Gate West Berlin Reagan begins by discussing the purpose of the Berlin Wall and how the Communists in August of 1961 built it to keep the Germans from escaping Communist-dominated East Berlin into Democratic West Berlin, that this wall was more than just a wall; it was a stark symbol of decades of a Cold War between the United States and Soviet Russia only to stop short of actual warfare. By giving this speech Reagan had intended to rally the people of West Berlin so the people would accept the western democracy and oppose the Berlin Wall. Due to Reagan being president the words he said had so much impact, he was able to use these appeals towards the German people and provide a very convincing argument.