Boyce 1

Brendan Boyce

Mr.Pimentel

Western Civilizations

December 7th, 2017

Berlin Wall Draft

The Berlin Wall in Germany significantly impacted Western Civilization in several

meaningful ways. It was built in 1961 and opened up in 1989. It caused a lot of conflicts and

created more tension during the cold war between the Eastern and West bloc powers of

Germany. The wall split Germany into the Eastern and Western Bloc after WWII. Before that, it

was divided into four sectors. All of these were controlled by separate powers, mainly the allied

powers and the Soviet Union. The Allies are all capitalist countries, but the Soviet Union is a

communist country. Eventually, the Soviet Union made their Eastern Bloc communist and tried

to take over the rest of Germany to make it communist as well. This did not work, and the people

of the Eastern Bloc hated the communism, so they fled to the other parts of Germany and

different countries. To try and stop the fleeing of refugees, they built the Berlin Wall. The Berlin

Wall trapped the citizens in Eastern Germany increased tensions during the Cold War. The

Berlin Wall significantly impacted Western Civilization by catching refugees into the Eastern

Bloc, greatly increasing tensions during the Cold War, and effectively ending the Cold War

when the wall was opened up.

After World War II, Germany was split into four different regions, each one controlled by

the United States, France, Soviet Union, or the United Kingdom. Berlin was also divided into

fours, but primarily East and West. The hostility was rising, and the Soviets would not agree to

restore postwar Germany, Stalin then planned to take over the rest of the broken Germany, by
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plotting with communist leaders still in Eastern Germany. He was going to take over the Eastern

Bloc and make a communist controlled Germany. They planned to implement communism into

the rebuilding countries that were destroyed by the war. The United States and its allies wanted

to protect and spread capitalism, but the Soviet Union wanted to do the same thing with

communism. Citizens of the communist country, East Germany, fled to the West, going towards

independence and freedom, not communism. They mainly got there through Berlin, since it

remained open. “An estimated 2.5 million people had flooded into West Berlin since 1949 ”

(Dearden 1), causing East Berlin to want to put a stop to it.

The Berlin wall was then built to better the defense and lessen the number of immigrants

to the Western Bloc. It was built in 1961 by the Eastern Bloc of Germany. The wall physically

separated Germany, but it also represented the differences and separation between the United

States and the Soviet Union. The wall kept hostility very high during the Cold War, increasing

pressure on both countries. The building of the wall also separated tons of families and people

from their jobs, causing the people to revolt against it. Back then, Berlin used to be the easiest

place to cross the border; now it has become the hardest because of the Wall. “In total, about

5,000 people are thought to escaped East Germany by crossing the wall – including more than

1,300 guards..” (Dearden 1). So many people wanted independence that they would risk their

lives and try many ideas to cross the wall. The Berlin wall was heavily guarded, with guard

posts, watchtowers, barbed wire, nail beds, and trenches to stop vehicles. It also had a death strip,

which was a heavily guarded and fortified part of the wall, where you would almost always be

killed if you tried to cross it. Propaganda from the West side promising independence and

freedom far outweighed the East’s propaganda about an anti-fascist protective rampart.

Obviously, the East’s attempt to keep people in did not work too well, as more people kept trying
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more daring ways to escape. One of the most interesting and successful ways was using a hot air

balloon to float over the wall. This wall caused a lot of problems for the people of Eastern

Germany, and caused a huge divide between superpowers. They would do anything to get over

to the free West.

The Berlin Wall split post-war Germany into two halves, the Eastern and Western Bloc.

The Eastern Bloc was a communist and controlled by the Soviet Union. It provided bad living

conditions for the people, and most wanted to escape. Since most of the citizens just got out of

WWII, they do not want to be under another bad government that unfairly treats their people.

Many citizens tried to escape in a variety of ways, but before the wall, it was a lot easier. Before

the wall, one could just cross the border with some help and planning. But, after the monstrous

wall was built, with its insane amount of guards and security, it became almost impossible. This

obstruction separated a ton of families and people from their parents, kids, friends, and jobs. This

made people lose money and faith in communism. Now more people were trying to escape to

freedom in the Western Bloc and other countries surrounding Germany. This huge separation

and tighter grip from the Soviet Union made more and more refugees want to escape, many

giving their lives just for the chance to escape.

The Berlin Wall stood for 28 years until it was fall on November 9th, 1989. Revolutions

were made against the East Bloc and the wall itself. “after having divided East and West

Germany for 28 years. On that day at 6:57 p.m., Günther Schabowski, a leading member of the

ruling communist party in East Germany, had casually announced to a stunned audience during a

live televised press conference that all East Germans were “immediately” allowed to travel freely

to wherever they wanted.” (Bohn 1) They demanded that they are let into the West, or at least

have a lot more. Freedoms. Also, since Hungary took down its border with Austria, many
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Germans were able to escape through Hungary and into Austria to get away from the Eastern

Bloc. The citizens had a peaceful revolution, and the protests grew quite large in the number of

people. With so many protesters and citizens leaving through other countries, Eastern Berlin had

enough and decided to let them leave through the main crossing points and the wall. The orders

for this were messed up, with the announcement happening a day earlier than it was supposed to

due to miscommunication. The wall started to be taken down later the same day. Many people

would chip pieces out and take them as a souvenir, and this helped to destroy a lot of the wall

and even making more paths across it.

The Berlin Wall greatly affected the lives of the citizens of Germany. Even some of the

streets near the wall were all abandoned due to fear of the guards and evacuation of the area.

This separation divided so much between just the people of Germany, family and friends all

separated, jobs lost, and moral decreased. Also, it is said that around 5,000 people were able to

flee with the wall being up, and over 200 were killed while attempting to cross over. This is a lot

less compared to the 2.4 million that had escaped since 1949. The amount of unemployment and

unhappiness and a lot more all went up. “...unemployment rates rose in the western part of

Germany to 10.1% and in the eastern part to 16.7%.”(Westerhof 1) and along with more

unemployment, the overall happiness in life decreased in Eastern Germany by a significant

amount. The happiness in the East was a lot lower than in the West, so you could tell that the

citizens preferred the Western democracy and not communism. It also showed the divide that

was being made between the two, and why so many people wanted to go to the West. The East

just was not that good of a place to live during this time, and this was widely known, as most of

the people living there wanted to get out as soon as possible. We know this because of the many
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protests and revolutions over the Berlin Wall, and also the number of people that did and tried to

escape.

The Berlin Wall made the tension between the US and Russia rise a lot during the Cold

War. It was the physical and ideologically separated them and their control in Germany. The

wall was like the separation between capitalism and communism during the Cold War and Space

Race between the US and Russia. While it was used metaphorically for that, it also actually

separated Germany into two halves, one being controlled by the Soviet Union and Russia, and

the other being controlled by the Allies Forces and the US. It literally and figuratively separated

the United States and Russia, and also capitalism and communism.The United States and Russia

still have a complicated relationship today, and that is due to the Cold War and the Berlin Wall

putting these two countries on edge with each other. Russia and the Soviet Union were trying to

spread communism to anywhere they could, but The United States was trying to stop them

anywhere they want. It was a constant battle back and forth between communism and capitalism

and which one would have dominance.

The Cold War still would have happened of course and been a big deal without the Berlin

Wall, but it increased the aggression between the Soviet Union and the United States. It was the

“Iron Curtain” that divided the two superpowers. Since there was a huge wall between the

powers and the area they controlled, it was like they were watching to see what could happen in

Berlin, which would make the actual countries to get involved and start a real war. That’s what

the Cold War was, the tension between the two countries that led to an arms race to make a ton

of nuclear weapons, the space race to the moon, and a lot more tension and threats of nuking

each other. No nukes were fired, but it was a very nerving war that caused panic. The Berlin

Wall helped increase that even more. It was the divide between the ideas of the democratic and
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capitalist West and the communist West. It was the physical representation of that divide, the one

that went on for years to come. Until that wall fell, allowing for the Cold War to start to end, and

for the end of the Soviet Union.

Once the Berlin Wall was opened up in 1989, people flooded out of the Eastern Bloc into

the capitalist West. It was an unexpected and unintentional opening of the wall, it was supposed

to be opened the day after, but miscommunication made the wall open one day early. The falling

of the Berlin Wall marked the end of the Cold War for the United States; it was the start of the

end of communist rule in Germany. “The protests continue throughout the country with the same

intensity. The biggest street protests were registered in Leipzig (a few hundred thousand

participants), Halle, Karl-Marx Stadt, Cottbus, Schwerin, Erfurt. All protests were informed on

by the mass media. A radicalization of demands is being noted. The main demand is that the

SED renounce its leadership role [of German Society] and the organization of free [and fair]

elections.” (Information Note from the Romanian Embassy in Berlin to the Ministry of Foreign

Affairs 1) The Cold War did not officially end until 1991, only two years later, but it had a major

impact on the relationship between the United States and Russia/The Soviet Union. The falling

of the Berlin Wall was a key factor leading to the end of the Cold War since all of the people

trapped in Eastern Germany could now see again how good the West is, and also spread how

terrible communism is and that it does not work.

This also started the reunification of Germany, since it was first unified under Otto Von

Bismarck and then broken up after WWII. The fall of the wall started this unification once again,

obviously now because there was not a huge wall separating East and West Germany, but also

because now that communism was slowly losing its power, Germany could be once again united

under one solid government. “Talks between East and West Germany started that year and at
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midnight on 3 October 1990 – less than a year after the Berlin Wall fell – the republics were

officially reunited.”(Dearden 1) This also ended the Soviet Union, which then became multiple

different countries all around Russia. The fall of the Iron Curtain, a nickname for the Berlin wall,

essentially led to the demise of the USSR, but not communism. Communism still exists today,

but it is not as strict and only used in few countries. Nonetheless, the fall of the Berlin Wall still

led to all of this. It reunited Germany and allowed for it develop into its own country again. It

was one of the main reasons that the Cold War ended; it was the beginning of the Soviet Union

losing power against most of the world and altogether falling apart.

The Berlin Wall greatly affected Western Civilization in many ways. It was one of the

main reasons for the current tensions between the USA and Russia, because of the wall

separating the two powers. It separated Germany after it was already split up from WWII, from

the different sections controlled by the US, France, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union. It

was then converted into the East Bloc, controlled by the Soviet Union, and the Western Bloc,

controlled by the rest of the Allied Forces. The “Iron Curtain” separated the United States and

the Soviet Union, communism and capitalism, and also Germany/Berlin. It was very influential

during the Cold War and caused Russia and the US to increase tensions. The Berlin Wall had

huge effects including increasing tensions during the cold war, separating the people of Germany

when it was built, and helping to end the Cold War when it was opened up.

Works Cited

Bohn, Annette, and Dorthe Berntsen. “Pleasantness Bias in Flashbulb Memories: Positive and
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Negative Flashbulb Memories of the Fall of the Berlin Wall among East and West

Germans.” SpringerLink, Springer-Verlag, 3 Feb. 2006,

Dearden, Lizzie. “Berlin Wall: What You Need to Know about the Barrier That Divided East

and

West.” The Independent, Independent Digital News and Media, 8 Nov. 2014, Gaddis,

John Lewis. The United States and the Origins of the Cold War, 1941-1947. ACLS

History E-Book Project, 2005.

"Information Note from the Romanian Embassy in Berlin to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,"

November 07, 1989, History and Public Policy Program Digital Archive, AMAE,

Berlin/1989, vol. 2, pp. 394-397. Translated for CWIHP by Mircea Munteanu

Major, Patrick. Behind the Berlin Wall: East Germany and the Frontiers of Power. Oxford

University Press, 2011.

Mearsheimer, John J. “Back to the Future: Instability in Europe after the Cold War.”

International

Security, vol. 15, no. 1, 1990, pp. 5–56. JSTOR, JSTOR,

Risse-Kappen, Thomas. "Ideas Do Not Float Freely: Transnational Coalitions, Domestic

Structures, and the End of the Cold War." International Organization 48.2 (1994): 185-

214. Print.

Westerhof, Gerben J., and Corey L. M. Keyes. “After the Fall of the Berlin Wall: Perceptions

and

Consequences of Stability and Change Among Middle-Aged and Older East and West

Germans | The Journals of Gerontology: Series B | Oxford Academic.” OUP Academic,

Oxford University Press, 1 Sept. 2006,