Berlin Wall- The Rise and its Fall

How the Germany was divided after the WWII?

• As a result of the Yalta and Potsdam conference, Germany was divided into four occupied zones:
  • Great Britain in the northwest
  • France in the southwest
  • the United States in the south
  • the Soviet Union in the east.

• Berlin, the capital city situated in Soviet territory, was also divided into four occupied zones. 

• West Germany, or the Federal Republic of Germany, was officially established in May 1949.
• East Germany, or the German Democratic Republic, was established in October 1949.
• Under their occupying governments, the two Germanys followed very different paths.
• West Germany was allied with the U.S., the U.K. and France and became a western capitalist country with a market economy.
• In contrast, East Germany was allied by the Soviet Union and fell under highly centralized communist rule.

How the Berlin Wall was created?

• From the end of World War II in 1945, the question of Berlin’s status 90 miles within the Deutsche Demokratische Republik (East Germany) and the Soviet Unions’ zone of occupation, along with the status of Germany among the community of nations, remained a source of tension between the East and West.
• Premier Khrushchev continued to push President Eisenhower and the other Western leaders for resolution of the issue.
• In November 1958, Khrushchev issued an ultimatum giving the Western Powers six months to agree to withdraw from Berlin and make it a free, demilitarized city.
• If the West did not come to agreement, Khrushchev declared that “the German Democratic Republic had scrupulously observed the stipulations of the Potsdam Agreement with regard to the eradication of militarism and liquidation of the monopolies while the Western Powers had permitted the revival of militarism and economic imperialism in the German Federal Republic.
• On June 4, 1961, Khrushchev and Kennedy met in Vienna in hopes that the two could exchange views in a personal meeting. During the summit, however, an emboldened Khrushchev demanded an immediate peace treaty to reunite Germany under Communist terms.
• He vowed to sign a separate peace treaty with Communist East Germany which, by his way of thinking, would then be unleashed to cut off free-world access to West Berlin. If a peace treaty were signed “the state of war would cease and all commitments stemming from the German surrender would become invalid. This would apply to institutions, occupation rights, and access to Berlin, including the air corridors.”
• The three Western powers replied that no unilateral treaty could abrogate their responsibilities and rights in West Berlin, including the right of unobstructed access to the city.
• As the conversation over the status of Berlin grew more heated, Kennedy undercut his own bargaining position with the Soviet Premier when Kennedy conveyed US acquiescence to the permanent division of Berlin.
• On Saturday August 12, 1961, East Berlin mayor Walter Ulbricht signed an order to close the border and erect a Wall.
• On the night of 13-14 August 1961, East German police and military units sealed off all arteries leading to West Berlin.

Fall of Berlin Wall

• In the late 1980´s however it had become apparent, that the level of discontent within the Soviet bloc had risen.
• The failed oppression of the Solidarity Movement by Polish authorities, in addition to Gorbachev’s Perestroika, were signals of different policies departing from the traditional authoritarian rule of the Communist leaders.
• The communist bloc was roiled by reform movements in the 1980s. In Poland, the ruling communist party voted to legalize the banned Solidarity trade union, which won seats in parliament in elections in the summer of 1989. In Hungary, there were mass demonstrations for democracy.
• Fall of the Berlin Wall, on the night of 9 November 1989, marked the beginning of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War.

German Re-unification

• The fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989, marked the beginning of the end of the Cold War and, eventually, the Soviet Union.
• Soviet-occupied East Germany, officially known as the German Democratic Republic, was reunited with West Germany on October 3, 1990. And the Soviet Union collapsed a year later.