The Berlin Wall was both the physical division between West Berlin and East Germany from 1961 to 1989 and the symbolic boundary between democracy and Communism during the Cold War.
The Berlin Wall was erected in the dead of night and for 28 years kept East Germans from fleeing to the West. The fall of the Berlin Wall happened nearly as suddenly as its rise. On the evening of November 9, 1989, an announcement made by East German government official Günter Schabowski stated, “Permanent relocations can be done through all border checkpoints between the GDR (East Germany) into the FRG (West Germany) or West Berlin.” Crowds of euphoric East Germans crossed and climbed on to the wall in celebration. Soon the wall was gone and Berlin was united for the first time since 1945. “Only today,” one Berliner spray-painted on a piece of the wall, “is the war really over.”
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Browse Berghahn relevant titles:
THE PATH TO THE BERLIN WALL
Critical Stages in the History of Divided Germany
Manfred Wilke
Translated from the German by Sophie Perl
“…constitutes a superlative model of combining biography with the study of nationalism. The latter constitutes the most novel contribution of this well-researched, straightforward historical depiction of Kohl’s ideology and its impact upon the continuing development of German national identity… Recommended” · Choice
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