The Berlin Wall: The History of Creation and Destruction. The fall of the Berlin Wall

This article will consider the Berlin Wall. The history of the creation and destruction of this complex illustrates the confrontation between the superpowers and is the embodiment of the "cold war".

You will learn not only the reasons for the appearance of this multi-kilometer monster, but also get acquainted with interesting facts related to the existence and fall of the "Antifascist defensive shaft".

Germany after the Second World War

Before you understand who built the Berlin Wall, you should talk about the situation at that time in the state.

After the defeat in the Second World War, Germany was under the occupation of four states. Its western part was occupied by the troops of Great Britain, the USA and France, and five eastern lands were controlled by the Soviet Union.

Next, we will talk about how the situation in the cold war period was gradually heated. And also discuss why the development of the two states, based in the western and eastern zones of influence, went in completely different ways.

GDR

As we shall see, the history of the Berlin Wall shows not only the place of the clash between the countries of the socialist bloc and the Western states, but also the gradual separation of the parts of one power.

In October 1949, the German Democratic Republic was established. It was formed almost six months after the formation of Germany.

The GDR occupied the territory of five lands that were under Soviet occupation. These included Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, Brandenburg, Saxony, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.

Subsequently, the history of the Berlin Wall will illustrate the gulf that can form between the two warring camps. According to the memoirs of contemporaries, West Berlin differed from the East as the London of that time from Tehran or Seoul from Pyongyang.

West Germany

In May 1949, the Federal Republic of Germany was formed. The Berlin Wall in twelve years will separate it from its eastern neighbor. In the meantime, the state is quickly restored with the help of countries whose troops were on its territory.

So, the former French, American and British occupation zones four years after the end of the Second World War turn into the FRG. Since the division between the two parts of Germany passed through Berlin, Bonn became the capital of the new state.

However, subsequently this country becomes the subject of a dispute between the socialist bloc and the capitalist West. In 1952, Joseph Stalin proposed the demilitarization of the FRG and its subsequent existence as a weak, but unified state.

The US rejects the project and, with the help of the Marshall Plan, turns West Germany into a rapidly developing power. For fifteen years, since 1950, there is a powerful boom, which in historiography is called the "economic miracle."
But the confrontation between the blocs continues.

The Berlin Crisis of 1961

After the onset of a "thaw" in the Cold War, the confrontation again begins. The next reason was an American reconnaissance plane, shot down over the territory of the Soviet Union.

Unleashed another conflict, which resulted in the Berlin Wall. The year of erecting this monument to persistence and stupidity - 1961, but in fact it existed for a long time, even if not in its material embodiment.

So, the Stalin period led to a large-scale arms race, which temporarily stopped with the mutual invention of intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Now, in the event of war, not one superpower had nuclear superiority.
Since the time of the Korean conflict, the tension has been growing again. Peak moments were the Berlin and the Caribbean crises. Within the framework of the article we are interested in the first one. It occurred in August 1961, and the result was the creation of the Berlin Wall.

After the Second World War, as we already mentioned, Germany was divided into two states - capitalist and socialist. During a period of intense heat, in 1961, Khrushchev transferred control of the occupied sector of Berlin to the GDR. Part of the same city, which belonged to the FRG, was in the blockade of the US and its allies.

Nikita Sergeevich's ultimatum concerned West Berlin. The leader of the Soviet people demanded his demilitarization. The Western opponents of the socialist bloc responded with disagreement.

The situation was several years in limbo. Khrushchev's visit to the United States seemed to have defused the situation. However, the incident with the reconnaissance aircraft U-2 put a fat cross on the possibility of mitigating the confrontation.

The result was 1,500 additional US troops in West Berlin and the erection of a wall stretching across the city and even beyond it from the GDR.

The date of construction of the "Antifascist Defensive Shaft" is August 13, 1961.

Construction of a wall

So, on the border of two states was built the Berlin Wall. The history of the creation and destruction of this monument to stubbornness will be examined further.

In 1961, for two days (from August 13 to 15), barbed wire was stretched, which suddenly divided not only the country, but also the families and destinies of ordinary people. Then followed a long construction, which ended only in 1975.

In all, this shaft lasted twenty-eight years. At the final stage (in 1989) the complex included a concrete wall about three and a half meters in height and over one hundred kilometers long. In addition, it included sixty-six kilometers of metal mesh, more than one hundred and twenty kilometers of signal electric fencing and one hundred and five kilometers of ditches.

Also, the structure was equipped with anti-tank fortifications, border buildings, including three hundred towers, and a control belt, the sand of which was constantly leveled.

Thus, the maximum length of the Berlin Wall, according to historians, was more than one hundred and fifty-five kilometers.

It was reconstructed several times. The most ambitious work was carried out in 1975. It is noteworthy that the only gaps were at the checkpoints and on the rivers. They were often used at first by the most courageous and desperate emigrants "to the capitalist world".

Border crossing

In the morning, the Berlin Wall opened with nothing expecting the peaceful inhabitants of the capital of the GDR. The history of creation and destruction of this complex visually shows the real face of the opposing states. Overnight, millions of families were divided.

However, the construction of the shaft did not prevent further emigration from the territory of East Germany. People were making their way through the rivers and making dug-outs. On average (before the erection of the fence), about half a million people traveled from the GDR to Germany every day for various reasons. And for twenty eight years from the moment of the wall erection only 5075 successful illegal transitions have been carried out.

For this, waterways, underpasses (145 meters underground), balloons and hang-gliders, battering rams in the form of cars and bulldozers, were moved even along the rope between the buildings.

The following feature was interesting. People received free education in the socialist part of Germany, and they began to work in Germany, because there were higher salaries.

Thus, the length of the Berlin Wall allowed the youth to track its deserted areas and make shoots. For pensioners, there were no obstacles at the crossing of checkpoints.

Another opportunity to get into the western part of the city was cooperation with the German lawyer Vogel. From 1964 to 1989, he contracted a total of 2.7 billion dollars, buying from the government of the GDR quarter of a million East Germans and political prisoners.

The sad fact is that when trying to escape people were not only arrested, but also shot. Officially estimated 125 victims, unofficially this number increases at times.

Statements by American Presidents

After the Caribbean crisis, the intensity of passions gradually decreases and the crazy arms race stops. Since that time, some US presidents are beginning to make attempts to call the Soviet leadership for talks and come to a settlement of relations.

In this way they tried to point out to those who built the Berlin Wall their erroneous behavior. The first of these speeches was the speech of John Kennedy in June 1963. The American president spoke before a large-scale meeting near the Schoneberg Town Hall.

From this speech there is still a famous phrase: "I am one of the Berliners". By distorting the translation, today American comedians often treat it as saying by mistake: "I am a Berlin donut". In fact, every word of speech was verified and learned, and the joke is based only on ignorance of the subtleties of the German language by the audiences of other countries.

Thus, John Kennedy expressed support for the population of West Berlin.
Ronald Reagan became the second president who spoke openly about the ill-fated fencing. And his virtual opponent was Mikhail Gorbachev.

The Berlin Wall was a vestigial of an unpleasant and outdated conflict.
Reagan declared to the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee that if the latter seeks liberalization of relations and a happy future for the socialist countries, he should come to Berlin and open the gates. "Destroy the wall, Mr. Gorbachev!"

Fall of the wall

Shortly after this speech, as a result of the procession of "perestroika and glasnost" in the countries of the socialist bloc, the Berlin Wall began to fall. The history of creation and destruction of this strengthening is considered in this article. Earlier we remembered about its erection and unpleasant consequences.

Now we are talking about the elimination of the monument of stupidity. After Gorbachev came to power in the Soviet Union, the Berlin Wall became a stumbling block. Earlier, in 1961, this city was the cause of the conflict on the way of socialism to the West, but now the shaft prevented the strengthening of friendship between the once feuding blocs.

The first country that destroyed its section of the wall was Hungary. In August 1989, near the town of Sopron, on the border of this state with Austria, there was a "European picnic". The foreign ministers of the two countries initiated the abolition of the fortification.

Then the process could no longer be stopped. At first, the government of the German Democratic Republic refused to support this idea. However, after the crossing of the territory of Hungary in the FRG, fifteen thousand eastern Germans crossed for three days, the strengthening became completely superfluous.

The Berlin Wall on the map runs from north to south, crossing the city of the same name. On the night of the ninth to the tenth of October 1989, the border between the western and eastern parts of the German capital was officially opened.

Wall in Culture

For two years, starting in 2010, a memorial complex "Berlin Wall" was built. On the map, it takes about four hectares. Twenty-eight million euros were invested in the creation of the memorial.

The monument consists of the "Memory Window" (in honor of the Germans who broke when they jumped from the East German windows to the Bernauer Strasse roadway, which was already in the Federal Republic of Germany). In addition, the complex includes the chapel of Reconciliation.

But not only this in culture is famous for the Berlin Wall. The photo clearly illustrates, probably, the largest ever graffiti gallery in the open air. If it was impossible to approach the fortification from the east, then the western side is all decorated with highly artistic drawings of street masters.

In addition, the theme of the "shaft of dictatorship" can be traced in many songs, literary works, films and computer games. For example, the mood of the night of October 9, 1989 is dedicated to the song "Wind of Changes" by Scorpions, the film "Goodbye, Lenin!" By Wolfgang Becker. And one of the cards in the game Call of Duty: Black Ops was created in memory of the events at the Checkpoint Charlie.

Data

The significance of the fall of the Berlin Wall can not be overemphasized. This fence of the totalitarian regime was perceived by the civilian population as unequivocally hostile, although over time the majority reconciled with the existing situation.

It is interesting that in the first years the most frequent defectors were East German soldiers guarding the wall. And there were as many as eleven thousand of them.

The Berlin Wall was especially beautiful on the day of the twenty-fifth anniversary of its liquidation. The photo illustrates the view of the illumination from the height. The two brothers Bauer were the authors of the project, which consisted in creating a continuous strip of luminous lights along the entire length of the former wall.

Judging by the polls, the residents of the GDR were more satisfied with the fall of the shaft than the FRG. Although in the first years there was a huge flow in both directions. East Germans flung apartments and went to a richer and socially protected Germany. And enterprising people from the FRG sought a cheap GDR, especially since there was an abandoned mass of housing.

In the years of the Berlin Wall in the east, the mark cost six times less than in the west.

In every box with the video game World in Conflict (collector's edition) lay a piece from the wall with a certificate of authenticity.

So, in this article, we have become acquainted with the manifestation of the economic, political and ideological division of the world in the second half of the twentieth century.

Good luck to you, dear readers!