The Berlin Wall - One Minute History

After World War Two, Germany was temporarily split into 4 “allied occupation zones” . The Soviet Union took East Germany and East Berlin, and the Allied Powers took West Germany and West Berlin. The strict policies of the East soon caused a mass exodus of families and professionals to the West. 1961 - The communist party began building a concrete and barbed wire wall around all of West Berlin to keep out the so called “Western Fascists”. The wall came to be the symbol of the “Iron Curtain” and the start of the Cold War. It emphasized a political divide between Democratic Western nations and Soviet era communism. The wall kept residents of East Berlin under the suppressive rule of the Soviet Union until 1989, when it was torn down in an act of unity between the East and the West.

Read by Adam Sartain