The Berlin Wall was built by the East German communist government to keep East Germans from moving to the West.
If you are interested in the whole story, read this:
When World War 2 was over in 1945, Germany was destroyed like no other country had ever been destroyed. Almost 90% of the German cities were razed to the ground by British and American bombers or by Russion artillery.
The Eastern part of Germany was annexed by Poland and the Soviet Union (although it had been German territory for 800 years). The 15 million Germans in these Eastern territoriea were expelled to Western and Central Germany. More than 30% of these German refugees died when they tried to escape from the Red Army. More than 1.5 million German women and girls were raped by Red Army soldiers.
After the displacement of the Eastern Germans was finished in 1947, the rest of Germany was divided into
- a capitalist West German "Federal Republic" under control of the U.S. and Britain and
- a Soviet-controlled, communist Central Germany ("GDR") which now was renamed "East" Germany (because the former "Eastern Germany" was Polish now).
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At that time, the Allies had no interest in a German unification because of the negative experience from World War 1+2. Most Americans and Russians said to themselves: "Better two or three separate Germanys than one united Reich."
Berlin (the former capital of the German Reich) had a special status.
The city of Berlin was located in the heart of the communist East Germany.
But even though, America and Britain had negotiated with the Russians to get control over the Western part of Berlin ("West Berlin").
So, since 1949 not only Germany was divided, but also Berlin was divided into a capitalist West and a communist East.
The problem however was that West Germany recovered very quickly from the post-war depression ("German Boom Miracle"). Already in 1960, the West Germans had nearly reached the living standard of the United States. And the German exports (Volkswagen, Mercedes, Siemens etc.) had even reached the world leadership.
Communist East Germany however developed much slower. Even in 1960, 30% of the war destructions in East German cities had not yet been rebuilt.
So, it is not surprising that
* more and more East Germans decided to move to West Germany and
* more and more East Berliners decided to move to West Berlin.
By 1960, almost 25% of The East population had escaped to the West.
Now, the East German government and the Soviets feared an economic and political collapse of the East.
So, they saw no other option than
* to build a wall between West and East Berlin and
* to establish a high-security border with mine belts between West and East Germany, the so-called "Belt of Death".
Both, the Berlin Wall and the Belt of Death were completed in 1962.
In the following decades, the East Germans had no chance to visit their children, their parents or their friends in the West any longer. The East Germans were imprisoned in their own country.
Of course, many East Germans became very desperate and depressive now. Some of them had a girl friend in the West and couldn't see her any longer, although the girl friend was already pregnant.
In Berlin it could happen, that the girl friend lived only 300 yards away, but on the other side of the Berlin wall. So, the East Berlin girl could see her West Berlin lover. She could wave at him. She could shout to him. But she never got the chance to fall into his arms any longer because the wall and the death belt were insurmountable.
Some East Germans even tried to escape through the Belt of Death. But there were so many land mines and pitbull dogs and communist soldiers with machine-guns that it was almost impossible to survive this flight.
Besides, the East German Secret Service ("Stasi") was the most perfect and radical Secret Service of the world. Almost in every East German household, bugging devices were installed. And almost in every family one or two members worked as undercover agents, who denounced their own parents (when they complained about the political and economic situation).
So, East Germans were in a deplorable situation. While West Germany was one of the world's richest nations, East Germans were 20 years behind. West Germans mainly drove Mercedes, BMW and Audi whereas East Germans had to put up with the old-fashioned Trabant cars (which looked like a pre-war vintage automobile).
The only worldwide success that East Germany had were their brilliant sports results. For example in the Olympic Games in 1988, East Germany won more gold medals than the United States. But, later it became public that East Germany had established the most perfect doping system the world has ever seen.
In 1989 however, Hungary (as the first East Block nation) opened its border to Austria. At that time, East Germans were already allowed to travel to communist neighbor countries like Hungary. So, only a few days later, thousands of East Germans rushed to the new Hungarian "escape exit" and flew to Austria and West Germany.
A few months later, the pressure on the East German government became so hard that the communist East German leader resigned. And on Nov. 9, 1989 demonstrations in East Germany had reached such a dimension that the new government decided to open the Berlin Wall and the "Belt of Death" between West and East Germany.
When the Berlin Wall came down on Nov. 9, West and East German men and women fell in each other arms because they hadn't seen each other for 25 years. The welcome scenes were so sentimental, so dramatic that almost every German was moved to tears for hours. Nobody had expected this miracle to become reality.
Now when the border was open, it was only a question of 12 months until the German re-unification took place on Oct. 3, 1990.
And despite all skepticism of the Western and Eastern allies, Germany has turned out to be a peaceful nation which is perfectly integrated into the NATO and the European Union.
Some critics however say that Germany again rules Europe: this time not by force and guns, but because of its economic dominance.
