Why Did Germany Build The Berlin Wall Between 1949-1940

In the years between 1949 and 1961, a mass of East Germans had fled to West Germany. Some of the people included skilled workers and high end intelligent people. The result of the East losing such successful people the economic was destroyed. In response, the Communist government of the German Democratic Republic also known as East Germnay built a barrier to close off East Germans' access to West Germany. This barrier was known as the Berlin Wall.

This barrier, the Berlin Wall, was first erected in August 1961. The first time building the wall, it was built out of barbed wire and cinder blocks, but then was required by a series of concrete walls (up to 15 feet high) that were topped with barbed wire and guarded with watchtowers. By the 1980s this system of walls, electrified fences, and fortifications extended 28 miles (45 km) through Berlin, dividing the two parts of the city, and extended a further 75 miles (120 km) around West Berlin, separating it from the rest of East Germany. (“Berlin Wall”)

Behind the wall on the East German side was what was called the “Death Strip”: which was an area of soft sand that showed footprints. They also had floodlights, vicious dogs, machine guns and soldiers to stop those who were trying to move over the

wall.
The Berlin Wall came to symbolize the Cold War's division of East from West Germany. About 5,000 East Germans managed to cross the Berlin Wall (by many ways and reached West Berlin safely. Unfortunately others, were captured by East German authorities and some were killed trying to actually cross the wall itself. (“Berlin Wall”)
East Germany's communist leadership was forced from power in October 1989 during the wave of democratization that swept through eastern Europe. On November 9 the East German government opened the country's borders with West Germany, therefore they made openings through the Berlin Wall. The wall henceforth ceased to function as a political barrier between East and West Germany. (“Eversley”)
The day the wall came down ecstatic crowds swarmed the wall. Some crossed freely into West Berlin, while others hammered and chipped the wall down. To this day, the Berlin Wall remains a symbol of the Cold War.

The existence of West Berlin, a conspicuously capitalist city deep within communist East Germany, “stuck like a bone in the Soviet throat,” as Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev put it. (“Berlin Wall”) The wall aimed to starve the western Allies, which lead the United States and its allies supplied their sectors of the city from the air. This effort, known as the Berlin Airlift, which supplied fuel, food and other goods to West Berlin. The result let the Soviets calling off the blockade in 1949.

Tensions flared again in 1958, the Soviets were making threats because they were upset about the number of skilled workers that were leaving such as doctors and teachers. Even though they were threatening the Allias, they stayed calm. Due to the threats they had meetings and conferences to help resolve their issues, but nothing got resolved. Meanwhile, the flood of refugees continued. In June 1961, some 19,000 people left the GDR through Berlin. The following month, 30,000 fled. In the first 11 days of August, 16,000 East Germans crossed the border into West Berlin, and on August 12 some 2,400 followed—the largest number of defectors ever to leave East Germany in a single day. ("THE BERLIN WALL)

Before the wall was built, Berliners on both sides of the city could move around fairly freely: They crossed the East-West border to work, to shop, to go to the theater and the movies. Trains and subway lines carried passengers back and forth. After the wall was built, it became impossible to get from East to West Berlin except through one of three checkpoints: at Helmstedt (“Checkpoint Alpha” in American military parlance), at Dreilinden (“Checkpoint Bravo”) and in the center of Berlin at Friedrichstrasse (“Checkpoint Charlie”). At each of the checkpoints, East German soldiers screened diplomats and other officials before they were allowed to enter or leave. (“Eversley”)

On November 9, 1989, as the Cold War began to thaw across Eastern Europe, the spokesman for East Berlin’s Communist Party announced that they are changing their relationship with the West. It was announced that at midnight the East were free to move to the West. East and West Berliners flocked to the wall, drinking beer and champagne and chanting “Tor auf!” (“Open the gate!”).
Millions of people from the East visited the West that weekend to participate in a celebration that was, one journalist wrote, “the greatest street party in the history of the world.” ( “The Berlin Wall”) People used many different tools to knock down the wall, these people were called the “mauerspechte,” or “wall woodpeckers.” They also had heavy machines to help since the wall was heavy and sturdy.

Soon the wall was gone and Berlin was united for the first time since 1945. “Only today,” one Berliner spray-painted on a piece of the wall, “is the war really over.” ("The Cold War Museum.") The reunification of East and West Germany was made official on October 3, 1990, almost one year after the fall of the Berlin

Wall.