Importance of the Berlin wall

Question 1

What did East German troops begin doing on the night of August 12th 1961?

Answer 1

Building a wall, mainly of barbed wire, in Berlin

Question 2

How long was the eventual concrete wall?

Answer 2

43km (27 miles)

Question 3

How did people try to escape East Berlin while the wall was being built?

Answer 3

Jumping the barriers, jumping out of windows, running through checkpoints

Question 4

How did the wall help the USSR but also show them to be the “bad guys”?

Answer 4

It stopped migration to the West. By August 1961 there were 40,000 people leaving East Berlin every day! This meant that East Berlin was losing young, skilled workers.

However, East Berlin, and communism in the East, looked like a prison

Question 5

How was the West able to use the Wall as a propaganda victory?

Answer 5

The USSR looked very aggressive

It made it look like Communism only worked if you trapped people in and forced them to live that way.

Question 6

What was the theme of the speech that President Kennedy gave in front of the wall in the June of 1963?

Answer 6

That freedom was better than communism, that the USA would defend West Berlin and that the Berlin Wall was wrong