The Berlin Wall was a remaining structure between East and West Berlin and East Germany and was built by the Soviet controlled GDR. It was built on August 13,1961, and was dismantled and removed on November 9,1989 it represented the cold war.
The Political Background
It is, therefore, necessary to analyze some political factors and conditions to justify the emergence of the Berlin Wall in the USSR. After WW2 Germany was occupied by four powers, the United States, the United Kingdom, France and the Soviet Union and divided into four zones. Similarly, Berlin, was entirely in the Soviet zone of occupation was divided in like manner.
In West Germany, establishment of Federal Republic of Germany in year 1949, there were New tensions between this side and East Germany which was formed in the Soviet Union zone of Germany. East Germany has lots of problems which include skills drain of professionals to West Germany; this made the Eastern Germany economy poor and politically instable. This pushed the USSR into action, cause its economic prosperity weighed much on its ability to sustain the war.
The Justifications
1. “Shelter against the ideologies of western world”.
The main reason given by the Soviets was the desire to shield East Germany and its socialist order from communism’s American besumbed, Germany said to have been penetrated by western imperialist spies. They claimed that leveraging the wall was inevitable in order to protect the socialist state from espionage, subversion and invasion of Western propaganda into the socialist state. They thought that when there was no traffic between East and West Berlin, they would control the west from trying to interfere and bring EAST Germany instability.
2. Read “Preventing Brain Drain and Economic Sabotage”
The Berlin Wall was also intended to solve the problem of emigration of intelligentsia and skillful personnel and workers from East Germany to the West. The USSR ‘s propaganda was that since their actions effectively prevented this mass emigration the economy of East Germany would remain inviable. Also they claimed that the west especially America had set its sights on the destruction of East Germany and any means to weaken the socialist economy was fair.
3. There are few different themes identified: the first one is “Defending Sovereignty and Security”.
The last claim made by the USSR was to support and protect the sovereign and security of East Germany. They claimed that the West Germany with the support of NATO and the United States was always a threat to the socialist state. In order to achieve that, they built a wall to lock their enemies in and, in essence, separate the two entirely, preventing them from attacking one another physically.
The Impact
The Berlin Wall was a strong influence on the lives of the German peoples and the Cold War order of the world. Hundreds of thousands of families were split and people in East Germany were finding themselves prisoners deprived of the right to visit friends and relatives in West. The main factual detail that the majority of historical characters remember regarding the wall is that it symbolized the division between the east and the west.
However, as USSR regulating institutions suggested, it was considered by most people as a political demarcation line aimed at controlling people’s thinking and, thus, preventing the penetration of democratization. Hence, the divisions that swelled up arising from the wall structure became integrated as a sign of suppression as well as unsuccessful attempts at suppressing human desire in the population of East Germany.
Conclusion
The Soviet Union had the pretext of defending the East Germany from the influences of the West, arresting the emigration of talent which is all referred to as brain drain, defending their sovereignty and security. However, the wall in fact fulfilled the major symbol of the division between the East and the West and the inability to quell the desire of the people for freedom.
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