|
||||
|
|
||||
|
The Cold War began at the Potsdam Conference, where Allied and Soviet leaders met to divide the fallen German Reich. Hostilities really took off when the Soviets refused to allow West German currency to be used in West Berlin. They set up a blockade and formed a living wall around the city. Soviet troops cut off all roads, railways and power lines to the city in order to starve the West out of the city. (May, *) The West immediately responded with a round-the-clock airlift of supplies, landing one plane full of supplies 45 seconds, every day for 16 months, making over 277,000 flights.This conflict was only the first of several US-Soviet confrontations over the next decade, including the Korea War. The living wall didn’t work for the Soviets, but maybe a real Wall would. When Winston Churchill coined the phrase “Iron Curtain” in 1946 (Gormley, 117), he probably had no idea how correct that prediction would be. Plans to build the Wall were a total surprise to the West, due to East German leader Walter Ubricht’s comment in June, “Nobody intends to build a wall.” (Burkhardt) But the Wall was built on August 13th, 1961 and was completed in little more than a day. (Berlin, 26) During the building of the wall, US and Soviet tanks faced off at Checkpoint Charlie, which would become the most famous crossover point on the Wall. The Berlin Wall was the focus of many other events of the Cold War. During the Cuban Missle Crisis, President Kennedy himself said the following of a meeting with the Soviet Foreign Minister: “What’s basic to them is Berlin—Even last night we talked about Cuba for a while, but Berlin—that’s what Khrushchev’s committed himself to personally.” (May, *) According to Anatoly Dobrynin, a former Soviet ambassador to the US, Moscow’s foreign policy-makers in the 1950s and 1960s held the opinion, “Germany and Berlin overshadowed everything” (May, *) In 1987, with Mikhail Gorbachev’s policies of glasnost and perestroika in full swing, President Reagan issued the challenge that would be the supreme test for Gorbachev’s new policies. Standing only one hundred yards from the Brandenburg Gate, Reagan pleaded for peace, saying, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” (May, *) Finally, on Nov. 9th 1989, with riots lighting the skies across Eastern Europe, it was the rampage in Berlin that made the most history. For most Americans, it is the scenes of Berliners storming the Wall and tearing it to pieces that lives on as the most vivid memory of those fateful nights. (Ramm) That night can best be summed up by Frederik Ramm, a German who participated in the celebrations in Berlin: “The Fall of the Berlin Wall, which will always be used as a symbol for the end of the Cold War, made the “West” available in the middle of the “East”, resulting in chaos with many facets.” (Ramm) The fall of the Wall was the high-point in a year of democratic movements across the globe, from Prague to Beijing. Within months, even the stronghold of Soviet oppression, Russia itself, had brought down its Communist government. The Berlin Wall was many things to many people through the years. It was a symbol of Soviet control to the Berliners. It was a symbol of Soviet might to East German officials. To the Western world, the Wall was a constant reminder of why they were fighting in the Cold War. The Wall’s end was a herald that the end of the Cold War was near. In the end, the destruction of the Berlin Wall was a sign that not even the Soviets were invincible. In its death, the Wall inspired new life for the democratic nations of the world. |
||||
|
|
||||
|
|
||||
|
|
||||
|
|
||||
|
|
||||
|
