The Cold War lasted for 45 years. The first major “battle” took place in Germany. France, the US and Britain went into Germany with the Soviet Union and they each occupied a certain area. They went there to find out what to do next in Germany. The US, France, and Britain joined all of their areas together and formed the Federal Republic of Germany, or West Germany, and they gave it a democratic government. The Soviet Union was afraid that they would be attacked by this new country and took their area and made it the German Democratic Republic or East Germany.

They split the capital, but part of West Berlin was in the east. To stop the Western powers from coming in, Stalin blockaded the city. In response, the US started the Berlin airlift and flew tons of food and supplies into West Berlin. This lasted for 11 months until the blockade was lifted. Hundreds of people left East Berlin to go to the West. To stop people from leaving, the Soviets built a huge concrete wall dividing East and West Berlin. The Berlin wall stood for 28 years and became a symbol of communism and the Cold War. The wall showed the Soviets’ power and control over people.

America’s concern was to stop the Soviets from getting any more power. To do this, the Truman Doctrine was issued by President Harry S. Truman. It stated that any country threatened by communism would be aided with military and money. It becomes know as containment.

The Marshall Plan was created to help Europe rebuild after the war. The US sent $13 billion to Europe, hoping it would help them rebuild. The US was trying to help countries achieve a democratic government and free their people. But the Soviet Union did just the opposite – it established totalitarian governments.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO for short, was created by the US, Canada, Turkey, Greece, and 8 western European nations. The countries in NATO pledged to protect each other in the event of a communist attack. This started to look like an alliance.

The Warsaw Pact was created by the Soviet Union as a response to NATO. Because of NATO and the Warsaw Pact, huge amounts of supplies like tanks, planes, missiles, and nuclear weapons were produced but never used.

After the war was over it was necessary for some countries to rebuild their government. Different types of governments were tried in Europe. One was the parliamentary, another was coalitions, and the third and last was democracy.

In the parliamentary system, a king or queen serves as figure head of the country, while the main leader is the Prime Minister who isn’t elected. The party is elected, and the head of the party becomes the Prime Minister. In coalitions, if no party wins in an election, a coalition is formed, where smaller parties join together to share the power. This lasts until one of these parties doesn’t want to continue sharing the power, forcing another election. In a democracy, the power lies with the people through elections. All of these different governments were tried in Europe.

Although the Soviet Union didn’t want it, The Marshall Plan still gave a boost to many countries economies. During 1950-1970 the per capita income, or average income per person, rose. This rose because of countries rebuilding their factories with latest technology, increased trade due to greater peace and trust because of NATO, and greater production making more things available to sell.

Although many changes happened in Europe after the war, challenges remained.

Welfare states were created. The government was responsible for the citizens’ well being. Free housing and medical insurance, unemployment insurance and pension had to be provided by the government. This made taxes very high.

In the 1970s and 1980s economies everywhere slowed down, making it hard for countries to provide services. During this time, the government wanted to raise taxes. When they couldn’t do that, they cut the services, like the police and fire.

While Germany was separated, West Germany became a major economic and political force. East Germany, the Soviet puppet, remained poor. In the late 1980s, things got worse in the Soviet Union and the East German government collapsed. In November 1989, the West German people pushed past the guards and began smashing down the wall. In October of 1990, Germany once again reunited and became one country.

The coming down of the Berlin wall was a great world event. People would go to wall just to get piece of it. As great as this was, it created problems. The East was way behind the West and some things in the West were never seen in the East before. Training for jobs was needed. Even though they were united, there was a gap between the two sides of Germany. Another problem was the past, and the Holocaust. People wanted to forget but the others want to learn. The youth wanted to learn because they wanted to know how to prevent it.

European countries needed to compete, but the only way to do that was to unite. As a result, the European Union, or EU for short, was created. Under EU, goods could be traded between members free from taxes. In 1999 the Euro was introduced as a common form of currency for all European countries.

Although Europe seemed unified, they faced new challenges. The first was nationalism, and there was also societal, cultural, security, and women’s rights challenges. In nationalism, the people didn’t want to unite. In society, many people moved from the farms to the city. In culture, Germany still had problems with the West Germans thinking they were better than the people in the East, calling themselves Easties and Westies. In Ireland, there were feuds between the Catholics and Protestants. And in Italy, the north was richer than the south.

Overall, the Cold War was slow. There were times where the people were so afraid of a nuclear war that they couldn’t watch the news. But most of the time, the Cold War was just a bluff between the US and the Soviet Union, and it wasn’t a brutal war. It was more of a technology war, where the countries involved competed with each other to produce technological advances. If there wasn’t a Cold War, we might not have had the things we have today.