The Berlin Wall
After its defeat, Germany was stripped of its ill-gotten gains. It was divided into zones controlled by the winning Allied nations. West Germany was led for a few years by the U.S., British and French before establishing its own independent, democratic government known as the Federal Republic of Germany. East Germany, occupied by the Soviet Union, remained under Soviet control and came to be known as the German Democratic Republic. It had communist leadership selected by Stalin and was effectively a Soviet satellite state. The capital of Germany, Berlin, situated entirely in the Soviet controlled region, was also divided into West Berlin belonging to West Germany and East Berlin belonging to East Germany.
In the years that followed, there was a mass migration of Germans into West Germany, seeking to escape the restrictive rule of Soviet controlled East German leaders. The lines between East Germany and the western occupied zones could easily be crossed. East German leaders sought to end this free movement and approached Stalin, who naturally found the situation “intolerable” and advised the East Germans to build border defenses and “guard the line of defense with their lives”. As a result, the inner German border between East and West Germany was closed in 1952, and a barbed wire fence was erected. However, the border between East and West Berlin remained open, and drew thousands of East Germans, particularly the young and well-educated, desperate to escape to the west. This brain drain had great damaging impact on the East German economy, its very existence in peril.
On August 12th, 1961, an order was signed to erect a wall and by the following morning, the border was closed. East German troops also created an almost impassable zone of barbed wire and fences along the newly erected Berlin Wall. Soldiers stood before the wall with orders to shoot anyone who attempted to defect. A vast no man’s land was cleared to provide an unobstructed line of fire.
The Wall was erected during President John F. Kennedy’s administration but he knew there was little the U.S. could do, although the wall clearly violated earlier Allied nations agreements. It greatly increased the tensions between East and West and the Wall came to symbolize the Cold War and a divided world.
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Feature Story Continued
Construction of the Berlin Wall
circa 1965