Berlin Wall

As World War II came to an end in 1945, a pair of Allied peace conferences at Yalta and Potsdam determined the fate of Germany’s territories. They split the defeated nation into four “allied occupation zones”: The eastern part of the country went to the Soviet Union, while the western part went to the United States, Great Britain and France.

Even though Berlin was located entirely within the Soviet part of the country (it sat about 100 miles from the border between the eastern and western occupation zones), the Yalta and Potsdam agreements split the city into four similar sectors. The Soviets took the eastern half, while the other Allies took the western. This four-way occupation of Berlin began in June 1945.

The existence of West Berlin, a conspicuously capitalist city located deep within communist East Germany, “stuck like a bone in the Soviet throat,” as Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev put it. The Russians began maneuvering to drive the United States, Britain and France out of the city for good.

In 1948, a Soviet blockade of West Berlin aimed to starve the western Allies out of the city. Instead of retreating, however, the United States and its allies supplied their sectors of the city from airfields located within West Berlin. This effort, known as the Berlin Airlift, lasted for more than a year and delivered more than 2.3 million tons of food, fuel and other goods to West Berlin. The Soviets called off the blockade in 1949.

After a decade of relative calm, tensions flared again in the late 1950s. The Soviets were emboldened by the successful launch of the Sputnik satellite in 1957, which launched the “Space Race" between the U.S.S.R. and the United States.

But officials were also embarrassed by the seemingly endless flow of refugees from East to the capitalist West—nearly 3 million since the end of the blockade, many of them skilled workers such as doctors, teachers and engineers. The Soviets blustered and made threats, while the Allies resisted. Summits, conferences and other negotiations came and went without resolution.

Meanwhile, the flood of refugees continued. In June 1961, some 19,000 people left the GDR through Berlin. The following month, 30,000 fled. In the first 11 days of August 1961, 16,000 East Germans crossed the border into West Berlin, and on August 12 some 2,400 followed—the largest number of defectors ever to leave East Germany in a single day.

To stop the flow of West Berlin-bound emigrants, on August 12, 1961, Khrushchev gave the East German government permission to close its border for good. The official purpose was to keep so-called Western “fascists” from entering East Germany and undermining the socialist state, but its primary purpose was stemming the mass defections from East to West.

Work began early the next morning, and in just two weeks, the East German army, police force and volunteer construction workers had completed a makeshift barbed wire and concrete block wall–the Berlin Wall–that physically divided one side of the city from the other.

Before the wall was built, Berliners on both sides of the city could move around fairly freely: They crossed the East-West border to work, shop or go to theaters, restaurants and movies. Trains and subway lines carried passengers back and forth.

After the Berlin Wall was built, it became nearly impossible to get from East to West Berlin, even through one of three official checkpoints: at Helmstedt (“Checkpoint Alpha” in American military parlance), at Dreilinden (“Checkpoint Bravo”) and in the center of Berlin at Friedrichstrasse (“Checkpoint Charlie”).

Eventually, the GDR built 12 checkpoints along the wall. At each of the checkpoints, East German soldiers screened diplomats and other officials before they were allowed to enter or leave. Except under special circumstances, everyday travelers from East and West Berlin were rarely allowed across the border, making the Berlin Wall a tangible representation of Winston Churchill's infamous "Iron Curtain."

The construction of the Berlin Wall did stop the flood of refugees from East to West, and it helped defuse the crisis over Berlin. (Though he was not happy about it, President John F. Kennedy conceded that “a wall is a hell of a lot better than a war.”)

Almost two years after the Berlin Wall was erected, Kennedy delivered one of the most famous addresses of his presidency to a crowd of more than 120,000 gathered outside West Berlin’s city hall, just steps from the Brandenburg Gate. Kennedy’s speech has been largely remembered for one particular phrase: “I am a Berliner.”

Over the years, at least 140 people were killed trying to get over, under or around the Berlin Wall. Escape from East Germany was not impossible, however: From 1961 until the wall came down in 1989, more than 5,000 East Germans (including some 600 border guards) managed to cross the border by jumping out of windows adjacent to the wall, climbing over the barbed wire, flying in hot air balloons, crawling through the sewers or driving at high speed through unfortified parts of the wall.

President Ronald Reagan, on a 1987 visit to Berlin, highlighted the Berlin Wall as a symbol of oppression when he stood near the barrier and delivered a speech directed at Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Uttering perhaps the most famous words of his presidency, Reagan demanded, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"

On November 9, 1989, as the Cold War began to thaw, an East German Communist Party spokesman announced a series of new policies regarding border crossings. When pressed on when the changes would take place, he said “As far as I know ... effective immediately, without delay.”

In response, East Berliners mobbed border checkpoints, some chanting “Tor auf!” (“Open the gate!”). Within hours, border guards were letting the crowds through, where West Berliners greeted them with flowers and champagne.

More than 2 million people from East Berlin visited West Berlin that weekend to participate in a celebration that was, one journalist wrote, “the greatest street party in the history of the world.” People used hammers and picks to knock away chunks of the wall–they became known as “mauerspechte,” or “wall woodpeckers”—while cranes and bulldozers pulled down section after section.

Soon the wall was gone and Berlin was united for the first time since World War II. “Only today,” one Berliner spray-painted on a piece of the wall, “is the war really over.” After 45 years as a divided nation, the reunification of East and West Germany was made official on October 3, 1990, almost one year after the fall of the Berlin Wall.