In the tumultuous years following World War II, Europe became divided between two superpowers: The chilly war was fought between the United States and the Soviet Union. This ideological division led to development of the cold war which is a period fully characterized by political and military confrontation. Probably one of the most telling manifestations of this division was the East and West Berlin Wall. It is high time to reveal the story of constructing this ined approach and unhallowed rampart and how it influenced the people and political relations in those days.
.The Origins of the Berlin Wall
After the second world war, through the treaty of Potsdam in July 1945 European Germany was partitioned on four zones occupied by United States, Soviet Union, United Kingdom and France. Their counterparts in Zonal, Soviet zone, were also four sectors, which were formed after the capital city of Berlin was divided. When the Allies were increasing the rhetoric, it became quite clear that the gap that divided the East and the West could not be bridged.
In 1948, the Soviet Union cut off road and rail communications with West Berlin because of the western Allies’ decision in June to introduce a new currency. This blockade was to make the Western allies to relinquish the city by denying the people of West Berlin food supplies. But, the Allies came back with the so called Berlin Airlift, supplying West Berlin with the necessities by air. While the blockade came to be lifted only in 1949, the ideological stakes did not change.
Fortification and Division
The GDR wanted to stop further emigration from the East to the West, and to this effect, with the Soviet Union’s backing, constructed a wall. The construction started on August 13 in 1961, and the world woke up to the new development. The eastern nation called it the Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart, while the rest of the world took to calling it the Berlin Wall.
The division between East and West Berlin was made of not just a single wall but other walls, watchtowers and heavily bunkered areas. Cuban Crisis: The wall was constructed to encircle West Berlin for 155 kilometers (96 miles) thereby sealing off all the ground connection between East and West.
Impact on the People
Underlining that the construction of the Berlin Wall had a great social effect on the Berlin people by isolating families, friends and neighbours. People were isolated from their families by the measures; they were not allowed to meet or even talk to them. This wall also became a symbol of suppression, because people’s attempts to cross it led to countless of fatalities.
Some people tried to escape and people used every means possible to get back to their family members. These were such as crawling through the sewers, leaping out of the windows and even making their own hot air balloons from comic books.
Political Significance
The construction of the Berlin Wall was crucial in the understanding and analysis of the Cold War Era. The wall was not simply a wall; it was the wall that separated communism and socialism to the west and the freedom they desire. The leaders of the Western democracies deplored the wall as an embodiment of Soviet totalitarianism, but the citizens of the Eastern Bloc hailed it as a bulwark against counter-revolution.
The wall with the time transformed into the symbolic political arena by acting as a home to protests and other demonstrations. The most well-known of these was President Ronald Reagan’s famous address of 12/1987 near the Brandenburg Gate, during which he urged the leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev to “Raze this wall!” It became an anthem of sorts echoing his cry across the five seas for the reunification of Korea.
The Fall of the Wall
When the superpower that was the Soviet Union began to disintegrate in the late 1980s, pressure for change increased in East Germany. There were more protests calling for more freedom in the political systems, and that they should not be divided. Last was on November 9 of 1989 year when the government of East Germany declared that it people are free to travel to West Germany. Many gathered at the wall and in the end the border guards had to open the wall for people to cross through the gate unimpeded.
‘The momentous event that occurred in the history of Germany is the demolition of the Berlin Wall, which signified that the cold war has ended an the two Germany could be reunited. This was such a time of great celebration indeed because we find families and friends being reunited after many years of separation.
Conclusion
The rise and the subsequent coming down of the Berlin Wall that overshadowed Germany is one story that deserves telling. What it represents is ideology, strength, and liberation – liberation of the human spirit and mind. The wall as a result of division remains as evidence that division brought death but opems up a new path to unity and reunion.
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