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The Berlin Wall was one of the most significant events during the cold war. By 1961 more than three million East Germans had lost faith I the communistic ways and headed to West Berlin for a better life for their families (Bill Holland). West Berlin was in a much better economic state because they were receiving aid from the United States. The United States along with Great Britain and France gained control of western Germany and had a different plan to rebuild than the Soviet Union’s plan to rebuild their eastern half. On April 9, 1948 Joseph Stalin ordered all Trains to western Berlin to be stopped, so the United States could no longer get supplies over. When Stalin put this in place, he thought he had won the battle, and we were now on the brink of World War III, until a British commander made the suggestion to deliver to the Germans by aircraft. The United States had little faith in the idea, but made a decision that it would be worth a try and started dropping food and other items to western Berlin by aircraft which came to be known as the Berlin airlift. The Berlin Aircraft caused high tensions among the two sides. Nekita Khruschev was witnessing all the people who were turning their backs to the communism ways and seen that the democratic ways were succeeding, so he decided if they were not willing to stay, they would be forced. This was his decision to build the Berlin Wall. On August 12, 1961 the borders between east and West Berlin were closed (Ed Grabianowski) and the building of the Berlin wall had begun. Street lights in East Germany were shut off so no one could see what was happening. On the morning of August 13, 1961 the people of East Germany along with President John F. Kennedy were awoken to a very big surpris...

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...e made through all border checkpoints between east Germany into west Germany or west Berlin” (Jennifer Rosenberg). When the people heard about this announcement they knew it was just too good to be true. They rushed to the wall to find, to their surprise, that the wall was actually open. People stormed to the other side to find families and friends that they had not seen in decades. Others stayed and began chipping away at the wall with hammers and chisels (Jennifer Rosenberg). The iron curtain finally descended when the Berlin wall fell on October 3, 1990. Within a year of the Berlin wall falling, Germany reunited under a single democratic government, the Federal Republic of Germany. The falling of the Berlin wall was the end of the long ad drawn out Cold War between the warring nations. Today the Berlin is marked as one of the greatest events during the cold war.

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