As a result of the End of WWII Germany was left without a leader so the 4 biggest Allied nations quickly swooped to take control. Due to differences on how they thought the country should be run, it was split up. With increasing tensions over the next 40 years, people were separated from families due to the construction of a wall that went up overnight. In order to establish why the Berlin wall came down it is essential that we have an understanding of why the wall was erected in the first place.
The Cold war was about to begin; two former allies, the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics were in conflict with each other. No military action was involved but, due to differing opinions and ideologies, the two countries did not get along and fought political, economic and social battles. Due to their different ideas on how the country should be run, Germany was split, with each of the four Allied Nations taking responsibility for a part of the defeated country. The Soviet Union occupied the majority of the east of the country whilst the United States, France and Britain claimed the west of the country. Despite the fact that Berlin, the German capital, sat in the Soviet zone, 100 miles from the western border, the allied nations decided that it too should be divided into four areas, each being controlled by one of the four countries. In 1948 the Soviets tried to drive the Western nations out by creating a blockade to starve the western civilians. Instead of retreating, the three Western nations supplied their sectors with food by air in which 2.3 million tons of food were provided. This was known as the Berlin Airlift.
This annoyed the Soviets with Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet dictator saying in a statement, ‘They stuck like a bone in the Soviet throat’. It soon became apparent that the Soviet Union had very different ideas about how their zone should be organized and, by 1949, the American, French and British zones had merged to become known as West Germany with the aim to try to reboot the economy after the war. This new powerful western zone was seen as a threat with its ideas of freedom and equality compared to the stricter Eastern zone, where police watched your every move and rules dictated how you should live your life and behave.
Over the next 12 years, tension rose with the cold war causing uncertainty across the world, especially in Germany with around 2000 eastern citizens escaping the communist Soviet zone a day. They never knew when or if the border would close, so they defected to the democratic western zone, seeking freedom and work. In amongst this a summit had been called in Vienna and Khrushchev had given six months for the westerners to leave Berlin. Kennedy refused to do so and in light of his defiance, on 13th August 1961, Nikita Khrushchev, the dictator of the Soviet Union and Walter Ulbricht, the dictator of the German Democratic Republic ordered a wall to be built that would divide East and West Berlin and stop people from leaving. The wall or Der Mauerfall was constructed overnight by East German security forces with barbed wire and fences and was seen as a physical symbol representing the ‘iron curtain’ that referred to a non-physical boundary, dividing Western Europe and Eastern Europe.
At first was quite easy to get over. Due to the fact that the wall had been constructed overnight, not much planning had gone into it, and, of course, in a city buildings are quite crowded meaning there is not enough space to build new things. This lead to some buildings becoming part of the wall, making it easy for some people to escape by walking in one side of a house and leaving on the other side into West Berlin. Soon the Soviets put a stop to this and bricked up all the windows and doors stopping people from crossing the border. They claimed it was an ‘anti-fascist protection barrier’ that was built to deter aggression from the west even though the wall’s 302 watchtowers faced inward on East Germany. Soon the wall was upgraded to a full concrete barricade that was 3.6m tall and almost 100 miles long. Despite its length, only 27 miles divided Berlin; the rest surrounded the whole of Western Berlin, blocking off the East German country side from West Berlin. The wall had lots of ‘gadgets’ such as electric fences, trip wire machine guns, and dog runs, anti-vehicle trenches and a ‘death strip’ where Russian soldiers were instructed to shoot anyone in the strip with no hesitation which resulted in over 100 innocent people dying including pregnant women and children. The wall also had a concrete cylinder that lined the top of it which rotated so if anyone managed to reach the top their hand would slip and they would fall. This made the wall very successful with only 5000 escaping, 1,300 of which were guards, compared to the previous 2.7 million people. Some of the ingenious escape ideas included jumping out of windows adjacent to the wall, flying in hot air balloons and crawling through sewers. The one place that was not blocked by the wall was the river Spree; people would try their best to swim across but most drowned or were shot in the freezing waters.
The first Person to be killed attempting to cross the border was a man called Gunter Litfin on 24th August 1961 just eleven days after the construction of the wall. Like many of his fellow eastern citizens Litfin worked in West Berlin as an apprentice tailor where salaries were higher and work was easier to find. He was also a member of the CDU party which was made illegal to be part of by the SED, the ruling Party. With it being so close to the erecting of the wall most of it was still barbed wire making it easier to cross. He chose an area he didn’t expect to be caught when crossing and ran. When crossing the train tracks he was shot and died almost instantly. To keep people from asking questions Soviet officials released reports that the man was a gay known as ‘Dolly’ and was fleeing from the crimes he had committed and the consequences that came with them.
With the sudden construction of the wall people woke the next day to find they had been separated them from their families and friends. One can’t comprehend the awful ordeals that people would have gone through being separated from their loved ones. Life on either side was still very different. On the West the economy was booming and streets were lined with theatres, night clubs, shops and museums whilst on the East the economy was weak with the looting from the Soviet Government and the loss of the majority of their skilled workers who were smart enough to leave to the west. The majority of the buildings were the same greyish colour and almost identical to each other. Despite a lack of money some things started to get better for East Berliners. There was a sudden increase in high quality free public transport and premier healthcare facilities as well as full employment. That hid the fact that the people of Berlin were trapped with no free speech and without the right to vote, conning them into thinking the Communist, Soviet way of life was better than the western. During this time many Presidents came over and gave speeches of support in Berlin, one of the most famous speeches was one given by President Kennedy in which he said, ‘’Ich bin ein Berliner’’ meaning I am a doughnut with a Berliner being a jam filled doughnut. What Kennedy actually should have said was, ‘’Ich bin Berliner’’ meaning I am a Berliner. Despite his slip up in the speech it is known today as one of the most famous anti-communist speeches of all time.
26 years after the division of Germany a new dictator was put in charge his name was Erich Honecker. Honecker had joined the party at a very young age and 17 years of age became a member. He had organized several illegal activities for young communists across Germany and was caught in 1935 and sentenced to 10 years of hard labor for supposedly ‘’preparing treason’’. In 1945 he was freed by the Soviet army and quickly got himself involved with the new communist government running East Germany. It wasn’t until one year later though that he was elected a member of the central committee. After his key role in the merging of the Social Democratic Party and the communists, he was appointed as the successor to the east German leader Walter Ulbricht. In 1971 he became the new leader of the SED and in 1976 chairman of the Council of State meaning he had full control of the government and the most influential party. Despite his tougher rulings he soon allowed people to travel and trade with those in the west as long as the west provided financial support. Despite his efforts to better things there was a sudden increase in riots and protests and soon enough he lost the support of Mikhail Gorbachev, Soviet leader, and was forced to resign in October 1989 and was replaced by Egon Krenz.
After years of struggling and the world on the brink of a nuclear war, tensions had started to grow weaker. The Cold war was coming to an end and so was the battle in Berlin. The Eastern government announced a change in the City’s relations with the West after losing the backing of the Soviet leader Gorbachev, the resignation of the East German leader of Honecker and an increase in protests for freedom and they were forced to open the gates. Throughout the year 1989 tens of thousands of people had escaped through Hungary and Czechoslovakia from the East of Germany. Eventually there weren’t enough people in some places to keep the schools open. So, on November 9th 1989, the people of East Berlin and Germany were told they were free to live where they wanted to. This caused guards a lot of confusion as they were unaware of the wall being opened and for a while, people waited and chanted, ‘’Tor Auf!’’ meaning ‘Open the gate’. Eventually, at midnight, the guards received word and the border was opened. This lead to the fall of the Berlin Wall and one of the biggest ever street parties in the world and that weekend saw nearly 2 million East Berliners visiting and reuniting with friends and family in West Berlin. Over the next few days everyone did their bit to demolish the wall and in doing so earned themselves the nicknames the ‘mauerspechte’ or the ‘wall woodpeckers’. Soon enough the majority of the wall was knocked down and Berlin was one again.
I believe that there was one main reason that the Berlin wall came down; East Germany losing the backing of the Soviet Union which left them with an extremely weak economy. There had always been unrest since the wall went up but, at the point in time, the East German government was particularly vulnerable. The government could no longer spend money on police forces which had kept the unrest minimal along with the other necessities to keep control of the country and the citizens quiet. With the sudden lack of authority, the Eastern citizens spotted a chance to protest for the gate to be opened knowing there would be almost no consequence. Due to the lack of power the government were forced to open the gates of the wall and allow Citizens through into the west. November 9th 1989 was the beginning of the end of 28 years of sadness and division and since then, Germany has once again been unified and thrives as one of the world’s most influential nations nations.
Bibliography
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