History of the Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall was constructed in 1961 and separated Soviet supported East Germany from United States supported West Germany. At the end of WWII, the Allies divided conquered Germany into four zones, each occupied either by the United States, Great Britain, France, or the Soviet Union. Berlin, however, was in the Soviet Union’s section but it was agreed that each of the four nations would rebuild it together. Though the countries were working together for a bit, soon, in 1949, Germany was split into two separate sections, West Germany and East Germany. West Germany being backed by the United States, Great Britain and France, and East Germany being backed solely by the Soviet Union. Everything soon changed in the newly divided nations. A Capitalist society was set up in West Germany and they experienced such a rapid growth in their economy that it was known as the “economic miracle”. The individuals living in West Germany were able to prosper and travel as they wished with enough hard work. Unfortunately in East Germany, conditions were slightly different. East Germany was under the direct influence of the Soviet Union and therefore a Communist society was put in place. The economy was very poor and the citizens’ freedoms were critically restricted.
By the late 1950’s people in East Germany had gotten so fed up with the horrible living conditions that they began to defect to West Germany. An estimated 2.5 million people had already left by 1961. Knowing these people had to be stopped, the Soviet Union formed a plan to force them to stay in East Germany. While many East Germans were sleeping, trucks full of soldiers and construction workers began tearing up roads leading to the West. They began to dig holes and put up concrete posts, as well as string barbed wire all across the border between the divided nation. To top it all off, the telephone wires between the two were cut! This was the first stage of the Berlin Wall. German politician Walter Ulbricht gave the order to start construction on the wall and the structure was built up by the Soviet Union, though Erich Honecker was personally in charge of building it.Though in it’s first stage it was made simply out of barbed wire fence and concrete posts, it still stretched over 100 miles and ran right through the center of Berlin and wrapped all the way around West Berlin.
The fourth, and final, construction of the wall was by far the greatest. It consisted of concrete slabs reaching nearly 12 feet high and 4 feet wide and a smooth pipe running across the top to prevent people from climbing the wall. People had been so desperate to escape, however, that they came up with many different plans to get out. When the wall was weaker in its first few stages people used simple methods such as throwing a rope over the wall and just climbing up it, ramming a larger vehicle into it and then making a run for it, and just jumping from the open upper-story windows of apartment buildings bordering the structure. Escape attempts were much more thought out as the wall became more advanced. Some dug tunnels from their basements all the way under the wall and into West Germany and others saved a bunch of scrap cloth and used it to make a hot air balloon and float over.
The fall of the wall happened very suddenly. Communism had begun to flounder and the separated sides of Germany wanted to be reunited once more. Exodus points were opened to people wanting to flee to West Germany. Due to extreme civil unrest and radical political changes, on November 9th, 1989, Günter Schabowski, an official of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, stated “Permanent relocations can be done through all border checkpoints between the GDR into the FRG or West Berlin.” The wall was diminishing and some people even went to it and began chipping at it with hammers and chisels. Once it had been dismantled, the pieces were sent to all different places. Some were sent to museums and other people picked up a piece and took it home with them to remember the monumental event.