The Berlin Wall

The Berlin Wall. . , Following the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945, the country was divided into four zones of occupation by the World War II Allies. The United States, Great Britain, France and the Soviet Union. Berlin, located deep within the Soviet zone also was subjected to four-power control. Three years later, the Soviets tried to force the Western presence out of the city by severing highway, rail and water links between West Berlin and the rest of Germany. After an eleven-month Airlift organized by the United States, the Soviets lifted the blockade., In 1949, the Western powers established West Germany by uniting their three occupation zones. Moscow responded by creating East Germany. As time passed, West Berlin, an island of Western prosperity within the Soviet bloc, became an even greater irritation to the Soviets. By 1961, three million East Germans had fled to the West., In the early morning of August 13, 1961, 28 miles of barbed wire coils were stretched along the border between East and West Berlin, in an attempt to end the flow of refugees. Once the Soviets were certain the West would not destroy the temporary barricade, work began on a permanent concrete barrier. This wall became the physical manifestation of the "Iron Curtain", referred to by Winston Churchill in his 1946 "Sinews of Peace" address at Westminster College., Twenty-eight years later, Moscow relaxed its grip on its satellite regimes because of internal crises in the Soviet Union, and permitted those governments to make decisions free from Kremlin domination. On November 7, after massive public demonstrations, the East German cabinet resigned; on the 8th, the Communist Party Politburo and Central Committee resigned; and on November 9, 1989, an official of the East German government announced that the Wall would come down at the stroke of midnight., The "Iron Curtain" was no more, and the re-unification of the divided Germany ensued.