19. The Berlin Wall Flashcards
How long was the Berlin Wall to keep the city divided for?
30 years
What happened in August 13th 1961?
How long was the Entanglement
Kruschev closed the border between east and west.
-streets near the border were torn up by East German troops so a barbed wire entanglement of 43km could be erected around the city
How long did it take for the Berlin Wall to be built?
What did the allies do?
How was the wall developed in this time
Seven days while troops blocked the border
Here chain fenced and minefields were applied and the west did nothing to stop its construction.
Also areas were cleared so East German guards could shoot any East Germans trying to defect
What happened as the wall went up?
Everyone mostly stayed at home, there were no protests and the streets were quiet
Who carried out the building of the wall?
East Germans did officially but A few miles outside the city soviet tanks waited ready to intervene should there be any resistance
What became if the new improved wall in dimensions?
1.2m wide and 3,6m high
Why was it almost impossible to get across the wall?
1) patrolling soldiers with dogs
2) floodlights and trip wire machine guns
3) tall and wide, 1.2 wide and 3.6 tall
4) open space with soldiers monitoring and shooting on sight
How did this lead to a scary stand off (checkpoint Charlie crisis)
How did this end tho
1) October 1961 USA disputed rights of soviet troops to patrol and guard checkpoints in to the wall as well as checking passports of American officials who passed these points.
2) as a result USA stationed own troops and tanks on their side, which also PROVOKED the soviets to place tanks on their side- giving possibility to armed attack
3) however Kennedy promised Krushcev if they removed theirs they would too and thus this ended the standoff (5m at a time went back )
How did the wall split families?
Why were west Berliners felt let down?
Became illegal to cross the border to visit relatives who became stuck at their ends.
- 2) Germans felt left down as Su broke the 1949 agreement about running Berlin and Kennedy didn’t even go to war …
How did some people still go through though?
1) by tunnelling
2) swimming along the Berlin teltow canal
3) jumping out of windows near the wall
- people thought Eastern German soldiers would deliberately take poor aim, yet many still died .
How did the Berlin crisis end?
What did Krushcev say about the wall
1) Krushcev thought he had beaten Kennedy
2) refugees stopped naturally leaving and economy slowly restabled
3) although he failed to make west leave, atleast this tension was gone
“PKrushcev said the wall was “guarding the gates of socialist paradise “
Kennedy famous visit to west Germany in 1963
What did Berliners feel about their country in regards to powers
How many people came out
(Wall was symbol that Country was just tool of superpowers)
1) in West Berlin 1.5 out of 2.5 Milli came out and spoke to crowd of 200k at city centre near the wall.
- hear some east Berliners heard and applauded him too.
He said “ich bin ein Berliner” here too
Give political reasons the Berlin Wall was constructed
- Khrushchev wanted complete removal of allied troops
- The U2 crisis triggered a fear of Allied spies in East Berlin
- as Khrushchev was angry the Americans refuse to apologise for the U2 incident
- refugee problem
Give Economic reasons the Berlin Wall happened
- To stop high skilled workers from leaving East Berlin
- as west Germany became more prosperous due to the deutschmark
- as Berliners were working long hours and suffering food shortages so they may leave
Give reasons of propaganda that the Berlin wall was built
- To save the reputation of communism and to ensure its survival
- West Berlin was an embarrassment to the Soviet union which had been transformed through US economic aid into a showpiece of capitalism
