A City Divided

A City Divided. The Berlin Wall Memorial. , For 49 years, Berlin, former capital of Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany, was occupied by the victorious allies of World War II--the United States, Great Britain, France and the Soviet Union. For much of that time an ugly wall divided the city geographically, politically, spiritually and economically. Until masses of people began dismantling it on November 9, 1989, this wall symbolized the "Cold War" that pitted democratic principles against communism. , In 1945, the four allies divided Berlin into four sectors of occupation. The American, British and French sectors quickly became known as Free Berlin. The Western Allies undertook political and economic rehabilitation of the war-ravaged city. Free Berlin was an island surrounded by Soviet-held territory--the only democratic community behind the Iron Curtain. , By 1947, Cold War tensions replaced wartime cooperation. Hoping to stop the development of a democratic West German state, the Soviet Union blockaded land access to Berlin in June, 1948. The Western Allies initiated the Berlin Airlift, delivering food, fuel and hope to more than two million courageous West Berliners in 1948 and 1949. The airlift succeeded, but Germany emerged a nation divided. The Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) developed on democratic principles; the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) became a Communist, centralized and coercive state based on the Soviet model. , Beginning with the airlift, Allied forces protected Berlin against a Communist takeover. Disillusioned and persecuted East German citizens fled to the West through West Berlin, where sector borders remained unguarded through the 1950s. By 1961, 3.5 million people out of a population of 17 million had left; East Germany stood on the brink of economic ruin. , Picture captions: , . On the Eastern side, the border strip was closed by a high wire fence with built-in alarm systems, beyond which were "Spanish Horsemen" or tank traps - steel girders welded into three-armed crosses to stop tanks or other vehicles. Two tank traps are part of this display. , Visitors to Berlin were incredulous. "Incomprehensible. Do people know about this thing? Can they really know without witnessing it first-hand? Do they really believe they can keep people separated by a physical wall?" , The wall became a ghastly tourist attraction for West Berlin. Thousands of westerners came to gawk at the East, as though through the bars of a cage.