Berlin Wall

The Berlin Wall came to symbolize the powers of oppression to many people in the world. It divided a city and split friends and families. People in much of the world saw the wall as unjust and immoral, and many of them rallied against it.

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west german people because east germans were visiting west germany to often. In fact 2.6 million people from the east were escaping to the west....

The Berlin Wall was built through Berlin so that it circled East Berlin. East Berlin was the section controlled by the Soviets. East Berlin was kept isolated from the rest of the world except for the Berlin Airlift. No one could enter or exit without a special visa or risk a dangerous passage over the wall and through mines.

The Soviet Union didn't tear it down, the East Germans did it on their own. And it was torn down starting in 1989, not 1987. But what happened to it was they crushed it in a rock crusher and used it to pave roads.

The premier of the USSR and leader of the Communist party was Nikita Khrushchev (1894-1971), who was in power from 1953 to 1964.

The 'iron curtain' was taken from a speech by Winston Churchill at Fulton Missouri in 1946. He was talking about the spread of communism in Eastern Europe and said that 'from Stettin on the Baltic to Trieste on the Adriatic, an Iron Curtain has descended over Europe'. He meant that Europe was now split into two zones - East and West. This didn't change until the fall of communism in 1991.

In many ways life in East Germany, like in most Eastern Bloc countries, was drab and dreary - and of course regulated by the state. The economy was not very well geared to consumers. The essentials of life (food, housing, basic clothing, public transport) were cheap. Most other things were regarded as luxuries and were quite expensive. There were very few shops apart from those selling food. There were of course the much resented restrictions on foreign travel ... Also, one had to be careful what one said, too. On the positive side, educational standards were high. Obviously, this is only a thumbnail sketch.

The Berlin Wall was not meant to solve Germany's problems. It was meant to resolve the issue of Germany -as- a problem.

After WWII Germany was partitioned. England, France, and the U.S got West Germany and Russia got East Germany. Russia wanted to dismantle Germany so that there would never be another World War. (Germany started the Second World War and was unfairly held responsible for the First World War.) They also wanted to turn Germany into a security-zone, a sort of buffer against any future invasion from the West.

This was a problem because the Americans had a very different goal in mind. They wanted to rebuild Germany and establish a functioning, democratic system so that the Germans could choose their own destiny and reunify via self-determination. They would be respected as an independent sovereign nation…which the Russians saw as a threat.

At first the Russians wanted to stay forever but it wasn't really an option after a while. So, everyone agreed Germany would eventually have to be reunited and left alone. The United States wanted it reunified as a modern, democratic power. The Russians wanted it reunified as an agricultural, communist power that would ultimately be just another puppet-state in the Soviet Sphere of Influence.

The Americans were afraid that the Russians would want to invade West Germany and take over by force. They were also worried that after turning over power to the German people they would willingly go red. When Russia built the Berlin Wall these fears were assuaged. It sent a message to the world that Russia was not in a position to annex West Germany and that the German people did not -want- communism. They had to be -made- to accept it with a concrete barrier.

So in this way it was a temporary solution to the "German Problem." As to whether or not it solved Germany's problems (possessive now,) the answer is...sort of yes but mostly know. It depends on what you mean by "Germany's problems."

At the time there was no unified Germany. There was West Germany and East Germany. East Germany had a problem with citizens flooding into West Germany. Doctors, lawyers, scholars, and the likes wanted out. This was an issue because they played a vital role in the community and economy and without them East Germany could not function. So the Russians built the Berlin Wall to keep them in and for the most part it worked. There were occasionally people managing to slip past, but by and large it was effective.

So in that sense, yes. It solved -EAST- Germany's problem with emigration. On the other hand it caused a lot of serious issues and ultimately did more bad than good. As a whole it served to keep Germany disunited until it was finally dismantled.

Incidently, you can still buy pieces of the Berlin wall at gift-shops and the likes.

America and Russia, and the cold war was pretty much all a bluff. Russia said we are making a nuke. And then America said if you are building one we are building 10 and this just kinda escalated into the cold war. Neither country had nukes though. It was called the cold war because there was no gun fighting, infact it was fighting with words. A fake fight with words actually, because nothing either country said was true.

Located in central Europe, Germany is positioned in both the northern and eastern hemispheres.

In Sparta, none The city had no walls, and called its soldiers their walls.

The construction of the Berlin wall begun on August 13, 1961.

checkpoint charlie

Phyisically the GDR, politically it was caused by the division of Germany by introducing a different currency in the Western Sectors of Germany (including West-Berlin despite being under the control of 4 and not three powers) and the decision of the western allies not to crash down Germany (Morgenthau-Plan) but to build it up as a political wall against the soviet dominated east Europe.

Since Western currency could buy any shop in the East-Berlin empty and due to the Socialist policy to pay similar wages to high-qualified workers ( MDs, engineers etc.) and lower qualified workers, it became an economical problem to loose high-qualified staff to the Wester sectors. Also counter revolutions have been tried in the East sector when there was no wall - e.g. 17th June 1953.

The East German border guards would shoot anybody approaching the east side of the wall.

The Iron Curtain divided Europe from the Communist Bloc during the Cold War. It was built in various places of stone, chain link, or barbed wire, with watchtowers and checkpoints guarding its length. "The Berlin Wall" separating East and West Berlin in Germany was undoubtedly the finest example of the physical and ideological barrier of the Iron Curtain.

The 1950's in East Germany, witnessed a massive numbers of East Germans leaving their country and relocating to West Berlin and West Germany. The great majority were young and highly educated or possessed technical skills that needed to rebuild the East German economy after the war. This "brain drain", created a huge problem for the leadership. Something had to be done and done quickly, if East Germany was to survive. Both the East Germans and the Soviet Union agreed to building the wall in Aug 1961.

~Building started June 15, 1961.

The Berlin Wall was opened in November 1989. Most of the wall has since been torn down, although parts of it still remain (they were still there in 2006 when I visited Berlin).

The Berlin Wall came down

The Berlin Wall was put up in 1961 and torn down in 1989.

The Berlin Conference of 1884Ð85 regulated European colonization and trade in Africa during the New Imperialism period. Expansion became fueled by the conference and previously unsubjugated lands in Africa ended up under European control during the nineteenth century

Because the communist style of economic socialism was unsustainable. It had no real incentives to reward the productive worker or the enterprising business builder. To the contrary, the Soviet styled economy rewared mediocrity and sloth. Unfortunately, the USA is going down the same dead end as did the USSR. The reason for this, is the real controllers of the nations (certainly not the presidents), but those in charge behind the scenes, like the broad economics of socialism because it allows them easier access to plunder the wealth of nations. The USSR was systematically hollowed-out, leaving only a shell of its former self. We see the same thing in America. Most all large manufacturing companies have fled, leaving the USA a pathetic service economy. Nothing is produced. Untold billions are skimmed in churning scams. America, sadly, is in the bloated Elvis stage, ready for a massive heartattack while sitting on the can. But we have football to distract us, thank God!

The wall was a concrete manifestation of what Winston Churchill called the Iron Curtain, that fell across Europe after World War II, when the alliance between the Soviet Union and Britain and the US fell apart.

The Berlin Wall Online Website (see link below) lists 192 people as having been killed on the Berlin Wall.

Because they could no longer see their friends in the same city