The Berlin Wall Research Paper

Of the list of famous walls built around the world, very few were built with the purpose of keeping people in, the most famous of which being the Berlin Wall. Built in 1961, the Wall became a worldwide symbol for a complicated conflict between two superpowers with Berlin trapped in the middle. People did not stay quite about their opposition to these circumstances and with great pushback from the people in East Berlin, the Wall was eventually taken down and Germany reunified. The Berlin Wall came to show that no wall can be built to keep people in. In the times following World War II, the countries involved held a particular animosity to Germany. Part of Germany’s punishment is that it was divided into four parts and put into

In August of 1989, President Bush gave a statement where he said "the barbed wire that severed a great city also proclaimed in stark, inhuman terms the unnatural division of Europe…the Berlin Wall has affronted the free world with an alien vision of closed societies where basic freedoms are denied." (23) Either side took the construction of the Wall differently, “While the West openly called it a wall and a barrier to freedom and even encouraged graffiti as an expression of protest, the East referred to it as the "antifascist protective rampart." Citizens in East Berlin were told to ignore its existence, to look the other way.” (17) In other words, the Westerners found it offensive and sought to have the wall brought down for the sake of the people trapped in East Germany while people in East Germany felt that it was constrictive of their rights. John Rodden quotes someone he talked to in his essay Report card from East Germany,” " only one opinion on any given topic reigned in east Germany and I never took into account any other opinions. there were never really any other opinions to take into account." People in East Germany weren’t allowed to express a different opinion about the governing powers. Another school teacher in the same essay is quoted "I can't

The protests were peaceful, chants about how there should be no violence, and marching in front of government buildings. One such march was done while people held candles because "it was a great sign of hope. to hold a candle, you need both hands--one to hold the candle, and the other to keep it from being blown out; you can't hold a rock in your other hand" (33) In a more local dispute, the people of East Germany wanted what West Germany had access to. Jens Schone in quoted by Andrew Curry to say that people “didn't want to wait 15 years for a car, they didn't want to work in a factory; they wanted to be able to travel and buy things." In one such case, teens protested the wall because they couldn’t attend a David Bowie concert in West Berlin and the police of East Berlin struggled to silence their chants of “The wall must go” (29) When the wall finally was taken down, there was celebration all over the world. People where relieved and celebrations took to the now shared streets of