The Berlin Wall
US and the Soviet Union are two countries always in conflict. After the World War II this conflicts increased due to the political differences, communism versus capitalism. Both countries were fighting to show which system was better, having as a result the Cold War. However, the conflict between them not only was the cause of the War, but also affected the lifestyle of most innocent germans living in Berlin at the time, and, although the conflict ended in the 1990, some differences between the citizens remain in the present. A hand reaches above the broken glass-covered top of the Berlin Wall is a photograph by Paul Schutzer that shows Berliners trying to escape from the east side, where the Soviet Union governed, because of
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Also this post war period was a competition between this to last countries. They were the most important mundial powers at the time. They tried to show which one of them was better according to their political system, american capitalism or soviet communism. This political differences had a stronger impact in Berlin where this countries were separated by a road. “For the Communist Government of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), West Berlin was a constant provocation, as it was an easy escape route for many East Germans who wanted to flee the country.” (“The building of the Berlin Wall”). In order to stop this mass exodus, which weakened Soviet economy and position in the War, they built the Berlin Wall and made the passage impossible in …show more content…
“Between 1961 and 1989 over 5,000 people tried to cross the Wall and over 3,000 of them were detained. Approximately 100 people died trying to escape. The last person shot dead was on 5 February 1989.” (“Berlin Wall”). As show in this article not even half of the people who tried to cross the Wall achieved it, most of them were detained and other died in the attempt, but this fact didn't stop them.
Despite most germans took the risk of crossing the wall, there were others that weren't as braves. Not only because of the fact that there was a wall between their actual life and their dreamed life, but because of the fear of being killed in the attempt. As suggested in the British journal “Times” just when the wall construction started; the east German government had given orders to fire the weapons on first sight at those who try to make a dash of freedom (“More E. German refugees crossing zonal border”). Since the end of the World War II Germany, as well as Berlin, was divided in two sides. People living under the communism of the Soviets tried to escape to the democratic side, fact that infuriated east government. This drove to the Soviet to the creations of barriers: one was the wall, the other one the fear of being
The feud between the United States of America (USA) and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) lasted from the end of World War II until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. The fuel that powered their feud was the desire to be the greater superpower. After World War II ended, the USSR gained control of Eastern Germany. On the night of August 13, 1961, a wall was constructed that divided the already separate East and West Berlin. This wall would become what was known around the world as the Berlin Wall. It stood as a barrier to freedom from the East Berliners. The Berlin Wall in Germany caused the USSR to lose the Space Race to the United States in 1969 because the USSR was communist, they alone had control of East Germany, and the United States was tough competition. With the Berlin Wall making tensions high in Germany during the 1960s, the USSR had a lot more business to take care of than they had thought.
My first reason why it was not worth the costs is the wall actually did not keep people out. It was not very protective. The wall affected so many things. It affected life styles, people's daily routine. It also affected families. (Doc. E). The wall was not one big long wall. It stretched three hundred miles to the west and there was a watchtower beyond the wall end. But there were still places that were not protected by the wall. The Xiongnu could just walk around the wall and them come in and invade. People may think that they are fine because the wall is protecting them but they need to be aware that there are spots that are not protected by the wall. They would spend so much money on this wall to protect people when it really does not protect them that well (Doc. D). One of the most important reasons is that they had to pay the Xiongnu to stay out and not invade them. They paid them with Silk Thread and Silk Fabric. The amount they gave them from the year 51 BCE to one BCE they almost tripled the amount! It increased a lot. If they had to pay them to stay out them that proves that the Great Wall does not work.
To secure its economy and to maintain it, the German Democratic Republic decided to build the heavily protected Berlin Wall. This would limit the number of exodus from the East and give the German Democratic Republic a large advantage over its population. As the wall had many purposes, one of them was to see if the West would retaliate in any way in response to this move. When there was no involvement from the any of the powers that controlled the West, German Democratic Republic took advantage of this situation to its favor and increased its control. It restricted Britain and France to enter East Berlin from their normal waypoints, rather commanded them to take the route through the American passage which, moreover, was heavily guarded and every personnel was checked before entering.
Berlin and West Berlin but was located deep inside the Soviet controlled zone. Then, in 1961, the Soviet government built a wall which separated the two halves of the city. It was not until the 1980s that cold war tensions eased. through the glasnost (openness to public debate) policies of soviet leaders. Mikhail Gorbachev.
How far only the people of Berlin were responsible for bringing down the wall is
A seventh grader asks his dad about the eighties. Unfortunately his dad can't remember anything about the eighties;and the older sister helps him remember the past. “Berlin Wall Piece,” by Sam Shepard is a story where a small piece of concrete helps a crazy father remember his modern history. A theme for the story would be: how a small piece of history can bring back so many old memories and controversies. When the story first opens up, a seventh grader is interviewing his father for his social studies class. The father is being questioned by his own son or daughter. The story does not reveal the sex of the youngest child. The father is unaware of the past; he can't remember absolutely nothing. The youngest child is confused, and cannot understand why his father can't help him. The father explains to the child that there was nothing important going in the eighties. The most important and significant thing for his father was the birth of his two children and his wife. The rest of it was lies, trash, and insignificant things the world had offered him. The truth was that nothing more matter to him than his children and wife. He had everything in the world he could ever wish for. The young child could not understand his fathers intentions to his answers. It was all a big mystery.
Notably, before the walls creation, Germany was a political mess. It was a mess for many reasons, but the main being that “West Germany (governed by the Allied powers- the United States, the United Kingdom, and France) and East Germany (governed by the Soviet Union)” (“Cold War”). Of course, the Allied Powers and the Soviet Union were polar opposites; the Soviet Union was Communist while the Allies were anything but, and despised the very idea of Communism. Therefore, The Wall was constructed in 1961 by the East German government. The walls main purpose was to stop the emigration of East German citizens, because in “1953, the number of refugees doubled- more than 400,000 people left”, all of whom were heading to West Germany (Dowling). They wanted to stop the “skilled workers and professionals”, which were in high demand at this time, from leaving (“Berlin Wall”). These young men were valuable to the economy, because of the various products and services they could provide. However, they were trapped against their will in East Berlin;...
The end of World War II was the beginning of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States. The Soviet Union had control over East Berlin, which was governed by a communist government and the United States had control over West Berlin, which was regulated by a democratic government. Both countries wanted full control over Berlin, so the Soviet Union set up a blockade on the West but was unsuccessful. The Berlin Wall was then built to stabilize the economy of East Berlin, which meant that fewer people could escape the east to live in the west. In the article “The fall of the Berlin Wall: what it meant to be there,” by Timothy Garton Ash, he highlights the feelings of no longer having a “iron curtain” segregating both sides of Berlin.
While reading “The construction of the Berlin Wall,” I found that on August 12th 1961, East Germany’s Council of Ministers said “in order to put a stop to the hostile activity of West Germany’s and West Berlin’s revanchist and militaristic forces, border controls of the kind generally found in every sovereign state will be set up at the border of the German Democratic Republic, including the border to the western sectors of Greater Berlin.” This was to stop East Germany’s population from shrinking and crossing over to the west. On the morning of August 13th, 1961, barriers were set up at the border of East and West Germany. Roads that were used to cross the border were ripped up, and guards closed off the traffic. Eventually the barriers were reinforced with concrete and blocks. People who lived near the border were ejected out of their homes and were remade into border control areas. While reading “Berlin Wall,” I found that the walls were eventually built 12 feet tall and 4 feet wide. The east side of the wall was called the “Death Strip.” On the “Death Strip” there was watch towers, machine guns, soldiers, guards, and even german shepherds. There were at least 171 people killed trying to get across the Berlin Wall. From 1961 to 1989 there were over 5,000 East Germans who some how managed to get across. People would jump from buildings, climb over the wall, fly over in hot air balloons, and crawl under through sewers, or even drive through weak parts of the wall. The construction of the wall helped stop a number of deflections enormously, and played a large role on the
The Berlin Wall, built in August of 1961, was s physical symbol of the political and emotional divisions of Germany. The Wall was built because of a long lasting suspicion between the Soviet Union on one side and Western Europe and the United States on the other. For 28 years the Berlin Wall separated friends, families, and a nation. After WWII was over Germany was divided into four parts. The United States, Great Britain, and France controlled the three divisions that were formed in the Western half and the Eastern half was controlled by the Soviet Republic. The Western sections eventually united to make a federal republic, while the Eastern half became communist.
The number of East Germans fleeing to the West was an embarrassment to the Communists, and something had to be done to protect the interests of the Communist movement in Germany. The differences between the vibrant economic life of Berlin and the gray, slow growth of a Communist People's Republic was particularly apparent. The number of trained professionals in particular threatens 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. Since World War II, about half a million people cross the border separating different parts of Belin daily.
After WWII After WWII, Germany was divided into four zones and occupied by Britain, France, the United States, and the Soviet Union. Berlin itself was occupied by the western powers; however, it was surrounded by the Soviet zone. Between 1947 and 1948 cooperation between these powers broke down. The west decided to create a separate government in their zones. To prevent this, the Soviet's increasingly harassed the western traffic to and from Berlin. Russia was trying to spread communism, abolish democracies, and spread poverty. Thus creating the Berlin Blockade, which forced America to create the Berlin Airlift. This created a greater controversy between the United States. This controversy's caused spies to enter into the opposition's country.
The Berlin Crisis reached its height in the fall of 1961. Between August and October of that year, the world watched as the United States and the Soviet Union faced off across a new Cold War barrier, the Berlin Wall. In some ways, the Wall was Khrushchev’s response to Kennedy’s conventional buildup at the end of July, and there were some in the West who saw it that way. However, as Hope Harrison has clearly shown, Khrushchev was not the dominant actor in the decision to raise the Wall, but rather acquiesced to pressure from East German leader Walter Ulbricht, who regarded the Wall as the first step to resolving East Germany’s political and economic difficulties. The most pressing of these difficulties was the refugee problem, which was at its height in the summer of 1961 as thousands of East Germans reacted to the increased tensions by fleeing westward. But Ulbricht also saw the Wall as a way to assert East German primacy in Berlin, and thus as a way to increase the pressure on the West to accept East German sovereignty over all of Berlin.
What will you do when you meet a wall that block your way? There are only two ways, either finding a way to go through the wall or staying still. In fact, this is life, when a barrier cut down the road, there comes to two choices, taking an action or doing nothing. In poems ‘where there’s a wall’ by Joy Kogawa and ‘Paxis’ by Sharon. They both talk about the ‘walls’ in their life. On the one hand, in ‘where there’s a wall’ Joy tells about her experience inside the internment camp where there is no freedom. On the other hand, Sharon in ‘Paxis’ observes how human being act meaninglessly under control of outside world. He expresses his sorry and wants to encourage people to fight their own future. Joy and Sharon try to tell people, life can be full
After World War II, when Germany was defeated, it was divided into four zones, one for each of the Allies. The eastern part went to the Russians. The other Allied Powers, France, Britain and the U.S. divided the Western portion of the city among themselves.