The Collapse: The Accidental Opening of the Berlin Wall by Mary Elise Sarotte explains the causes and events leading up the opening of the Berlin Wall. By first describing the state of Eastern Europe, Sarotte leads the reader into descriptive chapters about the people and events that lead up to November 9, 1989. The story of the opening of the Berlin Wall, or the Iron Curtain as some call it, is compellingly told by using a profusion of sources and actions from this historic, watershed event.
Mary Elise Sarotte first studied at Harvard University, where she received her A.B. in History and Science. She then earned her M.A. and Ph.D. in History from Yale University as well. Following graduate school, Sarotte served as a White House Fellow and
…show more content…
Sarotte used about fifty primary sources issued by governments. One example of this type of source is Benjamin B. Fischer’s At Cold War’s End: US Intelligence on the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, 1989-1991. She also draws from a multitude of autobiographies, broadcast and published interviews, and memoirs such as Autopsy on an Empire: The American Ambassador’s Account of the Collapse of the Soviet Union by Jack F. Matlock Jr. and Germany Unified and Europe Transformed: A Study in Statecraft by Philip Zelikow and Condoleezza Rice. Sarotte spent hours interviewing 53 notable people involved with the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany/FRG), the German Democratic Republic (East Germany/GDR), and the Berlin Wall. Her interviewees include Tom Brokaw, the NBC anchorman who broadcasted in Germany on the night of the Berlin Wall opening; Egon Krenz, the GDR’s communist’s leader during 1989; Harald Jäger, the lieutenant colonel who disobeyed orders and opened the Bornholmer Street portion of the Berlin Wall; and many more significant people. These first hand accounts make Sarotte’s book factual, informative, and develop the story. Sarotte draws from different perspectives to encompass all the sides. Throughout the book, she does not include any biased opinions. The interviews of people from different ranks in society, places, and backgrounds balances the book. It is clearly evident …show more content…
Continuing into the first chapter, the introduction on to explain the basic background of the story. After World War II, Germany became divided into two parts: West Germany, or the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), and East Germany, or the German Democratic Republic (GDR). West Germany was controlled by the British, French, and American allied forces. East Germany was controlled solely by the Soviet Union. The division of Germany was supposed to be temporary to help speed up the reconstruction after the destruction of the war. However, the permanent division was a result of the Cold War. The Western allies all agreed on a common currency for their occupation zones, but the Soviet Union refused to participate. The tension continued to build, and the Western allies decided to declare their zones the “Federal Republic of Germany,” while the Soviets declared their zone the “German Democratic Republic.” As with the rest of Germany, the city of Berlin was also divided between the Western allies and the Soviet Union. In 1961, Germany became physically and totally divided when the Soviet Union built the Berlin Wall around the three Western sectors to keep their residents from travelling there. The FRG drafted the Basic Law as the temporary foundation of the new state. Under this Basic Law, the FRG developed one of the strongest political institutions in German history. On the other hand, even though the
Following the conferences during World War Two, Germany was split up into two zones. Occupying West Germany and West Berlin was France, Britain and The United States, while the Soviet Union occupied Ea...
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 and tried taking its way around to get control of East Berlin by building the Berlin Wall. The creation of this “concentration camp” on a much larger scale, gave the GDR total control over the people. The reasoning that the German Democratic Republic provided for the creation of this gigantic wall was that many of its skilled labor were leaving to the “free land” or the West, causing an economic downfall in the East.
Taylor, Frederick. "The Berlin Wall: A Secret History." History Today Feb. 2007: 43-49.SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 20 Feb. 2012.
Dowling, Timothy C. “Berlin Wall: Cold War.” World at War: Understanding Conflict and Society. ABC-CLIO, 2014. Web. 7 Mar. 2014.
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.
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.
In conclusion Berlin Wall was an important milestone in the growth of the Cold War. It was the expansion that represented the thinking of a determined Communist system. Western Capitalism, which was more powerful, eventually defeated the system. The massive wall that did so much harm to a country was finally destroyed, and the people of Germany could now live the way they all wanted to live. They could live the life of freedom. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall East Germany has went through a lot of changes, and it still is not easy for all of the people in East Germany. But no matter how hard it is for the people of East Germany now, it is better than being alone and separated from their families, friends and rest of Europe.
In the last fifty years the German Democratic Republic has been a nonstop changing country. In Germany, the terms “East” and “West” do not just represent geographically regions. It runs much deeper than that, and there is still a large gap in the way of life, and political and social conditions of the whole country. While most German’s were sleeping on the night of August 13, 1961, the East German government began closing its borders. In the early morning of that Sunday, most of the first work was done: the border to West Berlin was closed. The East German troops had begun to tear up streets and to install barbed wire entanglement and fences through Berlin. Between 1961 and today, the Berlin Wall saw many changes, and so did the people that it entrapped.
In 1947, the Western portion of Germany instituted a government under the watchful eyes of the Western Allies. The Soviet sector followed suit in 1949. During this period, the elaborate governance structure of greater Berlin broke under the strain of Cold War tensions. What emerged was West Berlin, which took up ties with West Germany, known as the Federal Republic of Germany. East Berlin, which comprised the ruins of the old and historic center of Berlin and outlying districts to the East, became the capital of the German Democratic Republic. After World War II, the Americans pumped capital into West Germany through the Marshall Plan, which resulted in one of the world's strongest economies, enormous prosperity and a stable democracy. Germany has been divided ever since and though at every opportunity, lip service was paid by all western nations to its eventual reunification, no one took the matter seriously.
The division of Germany into West Germany and East Germany emerged as a stopgap solution for the woeful state of the nation following its defeat in the Second World War. With the United States (US) ultimately gaining full control over West Germany, East Germany increasingly became alienated towards it, as it went under the influence of the Soviet Union (USSR). West Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), rapidly grew into one of the most politically and economically influential nations in Europe representing the democratic interests of the US in the region, while East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR), went seemingly the other way. East Germans became increasingly disillusioned by the way their politicians have promoted communism in the GDR, characterized by oppressive measures and sheer inequality in living standards. The Stasi, the secret police unit of the GDR, closely monitored East Germans and purged those who are suspected or proven dissidents, while politicians of the nation enjoyed living standards that are way superior compared to the average East German. West Germans, on the other hand, enjoyed the benefits of political and economic reforms brought forth by the democratic influence of the US. Therefore, discontentment among East Germans increased the prospect of unification of the FRG and GDR – an issue that was never written off in consideration, only further complicated by political differences. Nevertheless, eventual unification of the FRG and GDR following the symbolic collapse of the Berlin Wall did not completely result to favorable circumstances, as problems that continued to alienate matters between the Western and Eastern sections of Germany remain unresolved (Brockman ...
Berghahn Books. 2000 Germany and the Germans. After the Unification of the. New Revised Edition. John Ardagh.
The histories of the Berlin Wall. The Berlin Wall separated the people of East Berlin from the people in West Berlin. Berlin Wall separated people from their families and people from keeping their jobs. So many people have died from not being able to eat. What happen before the wall got built, why it was built, why the wall got knocked down, and what happen after the Wall got knocked down.
German people were unused to a democracy and blamed the government “November criminals”, for signing the Treaty of Versailles. From the very beginning, the new Weimar government faced opposition from both sides of the political spectrum. The Left wing Spartacist group, lead by Liebknecht and Luxemburg, looked up to the new Soviet councils in Russia, wanted to place Germany into a similar system.
The collapse of the Berlin Wall changed Western Europe as we know it today. The Iron Curtain which had split Europe had ascended and the once divided germans were reunited under one common nation. The causal factors which resulted in the fall of the Berlin Wall were internal — communism imploded upon itself—. Gorbachev attempted to reform communism through Glasnost and Perestroika, which were supposed to incorporate economic reforms and transparency, however, history illustrates that increased liberty is incompatible with communism. Dr. Schmidtke argued that structural deficiencies led along with poor economic growth which led to the collapse of communism in Europe, and consequently the collapse of the Berlin Wall. The alienation of intellectuals and the authoritative nature of communist regimes further contributed to the failure of communism in Europe. However, the collapse of the Berlin Wall would not have occurred had it not been for Gorbachev’s Glasnost, Perestroika, and the end of the Brezhnev Doctrine. Along with German official Schabowski whose actions were the catalyst for the mass exodus of persons from the GDR into West Germany. The Collapse of the Berlin Wall would not have occurred so swiftly had Gorbachev not tried to implement reforms to communism.
Prior to unification in 1871 the territory that would become Germany was comprised of thirty-nine independent states and city states joined together in a loose German Confederation. The most powerful among these states was Prussia, both geographically the largest state and that with the largest population. The influential politicians and policies that came out of Prussia were instrumental in the gradual formation of a united Germany. Beginning with the rise of Napoleon, the nineteenth century was a time of incredible change which dramatically altered the political balance of Europe. In order to understand the factors that culminated in official German unification on January 18 1871, it is necessary to examine the preceding decades. No single factor can be credited for the unification of the German states. Rather, the combined forces of social change, economic strength within a unified customs union, the moral justifications provided by nationalism, Bismarck’s careful manipulation of internal politics and the advantages gained through military action resulted in the unification of Germany.