The Berlin Wall

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Berlin an Island of Democracy in a Sea of Communism

Because of west Berlin’s isolation as a democratic outpost in the middle of the communist German Democratic Republic (east Germany) it was a flash point for east and west relations, soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev once remarked “Berlin is the testicles of the West every time I want to make the West scream I squeeze on Berlin.”

As the inner German border (between east and west Germany) was closed the only way for east Germans to escape communist life was to head for west Berlin and then fly onto the rest of Germany, many of the skilled and educated east Germans were taking this option to live in the country with the higher standard of living, this caused severe problems for Walter Ulbricht the leader of east Germany who needed theses people to help with the economic recovery of the GDR which was still recovering from ww2 and soviet reparations. To counter the tide of people leaving the GDR a wall was built around west Berlin on August 13, 1961, without Russian help, despite Walter Ulbricht’s assurances that no one has the intention to build a wall. The GDR called the wall an anti-Fascist protective rampart however the view that the Wall was mainly a means of preventing the citizens of East Germany from entering West Berlin or fleeing was widely accepted even in the GDR.

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Ich bin ein Berliner (I am a Berliner)

Many families were split, while East Berliners employed in the West were cut off from their jobs; West Berlin became an isolated enclave in a hostile land. Despite this the western world did little American president John Fitzgerald Kennedy made only polite protests to the USSR, a few months after the wall had been erected the U.S. government informed the Soviet government that it accepted the Wall as “a fact of international life” and would not challenge it by force. There were even some people who welcomed the wall as a sign that the USSR an her allies would not try and take west Berlin by force. UK sources had expected the Soviet sector to be sealed off from West Berlin and were surprised at how long it had taken for a move of this kind. The west did make moves to protect west Berlin the city was re-enforced by the Berlin brigade who had tactical nuclear weapons. The western allies also looked to improve moral in west Berlin by sending General Lucius D. Clay (an anti-communist) and Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson. JFK also visited and made his famous ich bin ein Berliner speech, JFK also said “Freedom has many difficulties and democracy is not perfect, but we have never had to put a wall up to keep our people in.”