The Berlin Wall was constructed on August 13, 1961 as a border to separate East Germany from West Germany. It was viewed as a powerful symbol of Communist tyranny and it also demonstrated Germany’s division during the late 1900s. Germany was divided because of the different beliefs of the people. East Germany, led by the head of the Communist Party Erich Honecker, promoted communism while West Germany promoted Western style beliefs which included the United States, France, and Great Britain. For example, West Germany belief in a democracy in which the citizens were given the power to elect officials of their choice into office. Many of East Germany’s citizens were fled to the West because of the amount of opportunities being offered and as a …show more content…
Many steps were required to achieve reunification. At first East Germany and their allies approached this issue by being hostile. Eastern Europe started to become more open due to perestroika and many other factors. In November 1989, the government was replaced with a more modern one which allowed freedom for East Germans to travel. West Germany’s Chancellor, Helmut Kohl, attempted to promote unification. He introduced a ten point program which involved the necessity for both the East and West to expand their cooperation. Cooperation improved between the two government and negotiations between the East and the West led to an economic unification in July 1990. Gorbachev and Kohl also negotiated and came to an agreement to remove the Warsaw Pact forces from Germany in July 1990. A new issue arose involving the German - Polish border. The issue was settled in a treaty and Germans allies’ interest in Berlin died down. The reunification of Germany officially took place on October 3, 1990 with the German government joining NATO and many more organizations. The first elections were held In December
Eventually, the three leaders decided to divide Germany up and occupy it until it was certain peace would be upheld. However, they did not discuss the exact date they would stop occupying Germany. As time went on, the Soviets didn’t want to leave and even built a blockade in Berlin separating East Berlin from West Berlin. This only added to the fuel of the Cold War’s fire. This derailed the plan of the Potsdam Conference, which was to eventually withdraw their occupation. For this reason, the impact of The Potsdam Conference was more successful then the Treaty of Versailles but was still not a successful outcome. The Potsdam conference inevitably leads to tension between US and Soviet Union and used Germany as a place to show their
My first reason why it was not worth the costs is the wall actually did not keep people out. It was not very protective. The wall affected so many things. It affected life styles, people's daily routine. It also affected families. (Doc. E). The wall was not one big long wall. It stretched three hundred miles to the west and there was a watchtower beyond the wall end. But there were still places that were not protected by the wall. The Xiongnu could just walk around the wall and them come in and invade. People may think that they are fine because the wall is protecting them but they need to be aware that there are spots that are not protected by the wall. They would spend so much money on this wall to protect people when it really does not protect them that well (Doc. D). One of the most important reasons is that they had to pay the Xiongnu to stay out and not invade them. They paid them with Silk Thread and Silk Fabric. The amount they gave them from the year 51 BCE to one BCE they almost tripled the amount! It increased a lot. If they had to pay them to stay out them that proves that the Great Wall does not work.
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
It has been said that President Ronald Reagan ended the cold war with his strategic defense policies. In the year 1949, Germany was divided by the victors of World War II and they occupied different zones. The western regions united to form a Federal republic and the Soviet eastern region became communist East Germany. The cold war had begun. Berlin, the former capital of Germany, was divided into East.
In addition, East Germany began to allow its people to pass freely to West Berlin through the Berlin Wall, and the East Germans soon began to tear the wall down. Germany was reunified in 1990, when East Germany united with West Germany (Walker 388). In 1991, the Soviet Communist Party lost control of the Soviet government. Later that year, the Soviet Union was dissolved, and the republics that made up the nation became independent states. Russia was by far the largest of these states.
At the end of WWII, the United States, Great Britain, and France occupied the western zone of Germany while the Soviet Union occupied the east. In 1948, Britain, France, and the U.S. combined their territories to make one nation. Stalin then discovered a loophole. He closed all highway and rail routes into West Berlin. This meant no food or fuel could reach that part of the city. In an attempt to break the blockade, American and British officials started the Berlin airlift. For 327 days, planes carrying food and supplies into West Berlin took off and landed every few minutes. West Berlin might not have made it if it wasn’t for the airlift. By May 1949, the Soviet Union realized it was beaten and lifted the blockade. By using the policy of containment, the Americans and the British were able to defeat the Soviets.
After World War II, Germany was separated into four different sectors assigned to the triumphant Allied forces: the United States, Britain, France, and the Soviet Union. (Wolski) The capital was located one hundred fifteen miles into Soviet territory. (Kenny) The Western Allies believed this was unfair because Berlin was the only large city at the time. They agreed to separate Berlin into quadrants as well. (Wolski) The United States, Britain, and France joined their sectors together as a democratic state called the Federal Republic of Germany. (Taylor) Meanwhile, Russia kept their portion separate and it became known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR). However, this caused a problem because the democratic West Berlin was entirely surrounded by Soviet land. (Wolski)
Roger Angell 's "Over the Wall" is a memoir that he wrote about his wife that she passed away, leaving him alone in this world. The memoir is filled with his experience with his wife and his feelings towards his wife. When he starts talking about his wife, he realized that people whom he knew no longer lives in this world. Roger Angell made the readers imagine he is in front of them and talking about his personal experience. He wanted us to know that people that we love is gone in the blink of an eye. Literary nonfiction form of his memoir shows the readers that he missed his wife, but grief won 't help anything. “Over the wall” is an emotional story, as it reaches out to us with few deep messages of loneliness, feelings, and memories.
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.
At first, the divisions between East and West Berlin were uncertain. There was nothing that divided the city. For more than ten years after the official split of the city, East Berlin saw a major emigration of East Germans, unhappy with the communist system. With nothing physical to separate East and West Berlin, migration from totalitarianism to democracy was as easy for East Berliners as changing houses. The Soviet Union went against their promises to the people of East Germany, and made East Germany a Communist country. This decision by the Soviet Union separated East Germany even more from the rest of Europe. East Germany was now all by itself, and by the summer of 1952 th...
In Germany, the terms “East” and “West” do not just represent geographical 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 install barbed wire entanglement and fences through Berlin.
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 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.
Jens George Reich stated, “People imagine the reunification will be the answer to all their dreams.” While reunification marked the official end of communism within Germany, in reality problems were arising from the processes that were unexpected by the people of Germany. The reunification was implemented ineffectively by incompetent management amidst unfavourable economic and social circumstances which resulted in political, economic and social consequences as problems associated with the East far outweighed the advantages that could be provided by the West. Indeed, German citizens dreamed that the West could provide a degree of peace and economic stability that would reinforce a cohesive German identity.