The Berlin Wall - CCEA

At the Yalta Conference in 1945, Germany and its capital Berlin were both divided into four zones of occupation.

Berlin lay well inside the Soviet zone of occupation and was a source of tension throughout the Cold War.

This had first become apparent in 1948 with the crisis over the Berlin Blockade.

In the late 1950s, issues around Berlin sparked off one of the biggest of the Cold War crises.

Khrushchev and the East German authorities were concerned about the 'brain drain' from East Germany towards West Germany.

Between 1949 and 1961, an estimated 2.7 million East Germans left for West Germany, and Berlin was the centre of this process.

This created a bad impression of life in East Germany under communism.

Khrushchev became so troubled with this situation that in November 1958 he gave a speech in Moscow in which he gave the West an ultimatum.

He demanded that, as Berlin lay in East Germany, the Western powers should withdraw their troops from Berlin within six months.

President Eisenhower did not want to give in to Khrushchev’s demands and believed a military presence was necessary to protect West Berlin’s freedom.

It was agreed to hold negotiations between the two superpowers.

On 1 May 1960, just thirteen days before the USA and the USSR were preparing to sit down for a summit meeting in Paris, an American U2 spy plane was shot down over the USSR.

The USA claimed the U2 plane was a weather monitoring plane that had lost its way.

However, film retrieved by the Soviets from the plane clearly indicated that the plane, piloted by Gary Powers, had been on a spying mission.

Again in June 1961, Khrushchev demanded that the Americans leave West Berlin.

President John F. Kennedy refused and on 25 July, increased America’s spending on weapons.

1. America was embarrassed as it was shown to have lied about the U2 plane’s mission, and to be using methods of espionage which were morally suspect. They no longer held the ‘moral high ground’ in the Cold War.
2. Nothing was resolved on the issue of Berlin and it would remain a major source of tension in the Cold War.
3. The relationship between the USA and the USSR deteriorated even further, heightening Cold War tensions.

Relations between East and West got worse when Khrushchev responded to the West’s failure to follow his demands for them to leave Berlin.

On 13 August 1961 a barbed wire fence was erected along the border between East and West Berlin.

The wire would quickly be replaced by a concrete wall, complete with lookout towers and armed guards who had orders to shoot anyone trying to cross into the Western sector.

The Wall became a symbol of communist oppression and the most visible reminder of the distrust between East and West.

Once the Wall had been constructed, the US protested but effectively did nothing about it.

They were unwilling to risk war.

Though Kennedy chose not to challenge directly the Soviet Union's building of the Berlin Wall, he reluctantly resumed testing nuclear weapons in early 1962.

The Berlin Crisis (1959-61) was a time of quite considerable tension between the superpowers.

The shooting down of the U2 spy plane could have escalated into a very serious crisis.

In the end though, the wall symbolised the Cold War itself and was a physical reminder of how poor relations were between the superpowers.