Causes And Effects Of The Berlin Wall

1231 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Berlin wall impact

The Berlin Wall stood from its inception on August 13th, 1961 until it was deemed unnecessary on November 9th, 1989. When the Second World war ended and the allies were victorious they called conferences to determine what they were going to do with Germany. After the first world war Germany was punished heavily with reparations and having to reduce the size of their armed forces, and at the end of the second world war it would be no different. Of course they had to pay reparations but the countries that fought with Hitler would also lose territory and Germany would be no different. Dividing Germany would be the precursor to the building and the fall of the Berlin Wall.
When the war ended the Allied Peace Conference, the Yalta Conference and
2 weeks later after his declaration a fence and concrete wall was built to block the movement of people. Prior to the building of the fence people were able to move freely between East to West Berlin. Of course after the fence was constructed restriction from East to West was prohibited and if one wanted to go from West to East they would be heavily searched and scrutinized when they arrived and left. There were originally 3 check pints along the fence, Helmstedt, Dreilinden, and Friedrichstrasse. When the full wall was actually built there were 12 checkpoints. These check points would have guards of both sides to watch and see if people were attempting to leave and those that where coming in. When the full wall was finally built it would have the effect that the Soviet Union and the communists in Germany were hoping
Two years earlier President Ronald Reagan delivered his famous ‘Tear Down This Wall” speech on June 12, 1987 where he discussed that the wall was a symbol of the Cold War and the dominance that both super powers were seeking. Of course this is where the most famous line of his presidency happened, “Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” (http://www.historyplace.com/speeches/reagan-tear-down.htm) The most important line of his whole presidency didn’t happen in the United States but in the occupation zone of West Berlin. That weekend when the gates were opened they were flooded with people shouting and drinking, over 2 million people would go through the gates in two days to sometimes see family that were on the opposite side of the wall or to go to the movies and enjoy their day. The reunification of Germany would be official on October 3rd, 1990.
The Berlin wall stood in the face of the allies and they were able to continue to be peaceful and continue to protect their people while fighting in proxy wars across the country. To the people inside the wall it was a sign of oppression and to those that escaped a sign of the past. Today pieces of the Berlin Wall are around the country and you can touch a piece of

Show More
Related

  • Remarks At The Brandenburg Gate Rhetorical Devices

    736 Words  | 2 Pages

    Every man is a Berliner, forced to look upon a scar.” Until this point, Reagan’s audience appears to be limited to Germans. By unifying these groups, he compels the world to empathize with their German brethren. The pain and suffering felt by the German people becomes that of mankind, encouraging the rest of the world to understand wanting the wall to fall on a personal level. This is further exemplified in the next paragraph when Reagan declares, “As long as this gate is closed, as long as this scar of a wall is permitted to stand, it is not the German question alone that remains open, but the question of freedom for all

    Read More

  • Berlin Wall Dbq

    1178 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the year 1961, the building of Berlin Wall called upon disasters in Germany. United States controlled the west of Berlin while German Democratic Republic held the East. Being stuck under the rule of day to day terror, people from East Berlin were making their way to the West Berlin. West Berlin was a safe spot and freedom checkpoint in the middle of terror. To stop the moving of East Berliners, the East German government decided to build a barrier that limited and halted the East Berliners from leaving. But the battle to control Berlin between, the United States and the Soviet Union, had been taking place since after the division of Germany. The German Democratic Republic wanted better control over its people to spread its communist ideas

    Read More

  • Rhetorical Analysis Of Ronald Reagan's Speech

    315 Words  | 1 Pages

    For instance, in his speech “Tear Down This Wall” Reagan addresses the need for the people of West Berlin to accept democracy and oppose the Berlin Wall, which planned to separate East and West Berlin as a symbol of communist oppression.

    Read More

  • Ronald Reagan Beliefs

    810 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...speech to the world where he was quoted as saying, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” The speech was given at the Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin (“Mr. Gorbachev, Tear Down This Wall: President Ronald Reagan”). This speech signified the beginning of the end of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. President Reagan’s foreign policy tactics are another reason why he was a great president.

    Read More

  • Ethos Pathos In Ronald Reagan's Brandenburg Gate Speech

    1233 Words  | 3 Pages

    Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” (Reagan 361) This line, while so simple, is probably the most famous from the whole speech and arguably one of Ronald Reagan 's most famous and recognizable lines ever. It sends a glaringly strong message that the United States and entire free world wants to bring Germany together not just for its own personal interests but because it genuinely cares about the state of the country. This short concise statement also shows that the president means business and that he is willing to do anything in his power to help the German people should Gorbachev accept his offer. He goes on to state that the United States is striving for peace and although it can not permit the spreading of communism, it does seek for all the people to see an increase in the standard of living and assure both sides security by demilitarizing and disarming both sides wherever

    Read More

  • A Brief History of the Berlin Wall

    881 Words  | 2 Pages

    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;...

    Read More

  • Analysis Of The Fall Of The Berlin Wall

    1057 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • The Berlin Wall And The Cold War

    1264 Words  | 3 Pages

    For many, the fall of the wall proved the triumph of capitalism over communism. East German communist leaders were forced out of office. Negotiations began for the complete reunification of Germany.
West German Chancellor H. Kohl assured the world that a united Germany would be no threat to peace. In October 1990, he became the first Chancellor of a reunited Germany. The construction of the Berlin wall in Germany between the 13th of August 1961 – 1989 increased tensions to a significant extent as it was a sign of dominance portrayed by the USSR, was a follow up from the Bay of pigs and U2 spy plane crisis and the US were trying to combat the USSR by setting up the Berlin airlift and demanding peace in the east. The Berlin Wall was arguably the greatest source of tension during the Cold War due to the many significant events happening before and after the construction of the wall. Finally, the construction of the Berlin Wall created significant tensions between the two superpowers, USSR and the USA, which developed into other tensions arising in the Cold War Period. I have analysed the topic ‘To what extent did the construction of the Berlin Wall increase tensions during the Cold War period’ and developed 3 strong body paragraphs that support my

    Read More

  • Myth Of German Reunification

    1424 Words  | 3 Pages

    The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 precipitated the Reunification of Germany in 1990. Negotiations and talks between East German’s Lothar de Maiziere and West German’s Helmut Kohl and the four occupying powers of United States, United Kingdom, France, and Soviet Union resulted in the Unification Treaty or the “Two plus Four Treaty” recognizing the sovereignty of the newly unified German state. The five states of German Democratic Republic or East Germany united with Federal Republic of Germany or West Germany and Berlin became a unified city on October 3, 1990 marking the die wende or Turning Point. “By early 1991, however, not much more than a year after the barricade surrounding the Brandenburg Gate was actually removed, most Germans, East and West, were asking themselves whether the Wall’s absence was, by itself sufficient to bring the nation together again” (McAdams 199).” Zealous attempts to restructure East Germany’s economy after reunification in 1990 led to massive debt and high taxation, sparking disillusionment and frustration among German citizens, which resulted in a divided and unequal economy.

    Read More

  • Significance Of The Berlin Wall

    2168 Words  | 5 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • History Of The Berlin Wall

    551 Words  | 2 Pages

    Each section was controlled by a different country; United States, France, Britain, and the Soviet Union. The Capital Berlin, being inside the Soviet controlled East Germany, was also divided into two sections, East and West Berlin. West Berlin was controlled by the United States and East Berlin was controlled by the Soviet Union. Starting on August 13 1961, Berliners woke up to a barrier separating the east from the west. East Germans had closed off the border with barbwire and guards. Many families were separated. Many jobs were lost. Two days after the border had been closed off, a wall had begun to get built.

    Read More

  • Social Effects of the Berlin Wall

    1034 Words  | 3 Pages

    Prior to the construction of the Berlin Wall, boarders between East and West Germany were closed in 1952 because of tension between Communists and Democratic superpowers and the only open crossing left in Berlin. West Germany was blockaded by the Soviets and only kept alive because of air drops made by the Western Allies (Time). The Soviets had to do something about the mass amount of people leaving Soviet East Berlin for West Berlin, and the non-communist world.

    Read More

  • The Berlin Wall

    791 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Essay On The Berlin Wall

    564 Words  | 2 Pages

    Before the wall got built in1961, East German peoples could travel to West Berlin to visit there family’s. On May 8th, 1945 the World War II ended. June 24th, 1948 the Soviet Military started the Berlin Blockade. Germany was divided in four different parts after World War II. Each part was controlled by a different part of a country. Twenty- eight years and “Iron curtain” East and West Berlin got divided in the heart of Germany.

    Read More

  • Peter Leibing Visual Analysis

    630 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Berlin Wall was constructed in 1961 by the GDR (German Democratic Republic - (East Germany) under the pretext of keeping out the fascist enemy infiltrating from West Germany. In actual fact, the wall was built to keep in the population of the GDR, many of whom were fleeing to a better life in West Berlin and other European Countries. Armed border guards were sworn to protect East Germany however they knew that a better life existed on the other side of the wall. The photographer, Peter Leibing, captured the moment in history, when the first GDR Border Guard , Conrad Schumann, finally got the courage to desert his post and leap over the barricade (at that point still a barbed wire fence).

    Read More

More about Causes And Effects Of The Berlin Wall

Open Document