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Unlock This CourseRemember, Germany had been two countries since 1949, and Berlin lay deep inside East Germany. In 1952 East Germany sealed its long border with West Germany. Berlin was different. The city was still run by the four powers, so people could move between its sectors on foot or by underground train. An East German who wanted to leave only had to travel to East Berlin, cross into West Berlin and fly out to West Germany.
Huge numbers did. Between 1949 and 1961 more than two and a half million East Germans left for the West. They had two main reasons:
For the East German leader, Walter Ulbricht, this was a disaster. Many of those leaving were young and highly trained: engineers, doctors, teachers and skilled workers. East Germany had paid to educate them and now could not replace them. It was also a propaganda defeat. Every person who left was a sign that people preferred life under Capitalism.
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Khrushchev also wanted the West out of Berlin for his own reasons. West Berlin was a base for Western spies and a showcase of Western wealth in the middle of the Soviet bloc.
The crisis made the refugee problem worse. East Germans feared the way out was about to close, so they rushed to leave. About 30,000 left in July 1961 alone. Ulbricht pressed Khrushchev to let him close the border, although on 15 June he had told reporters: 'Nobody has any intention of building a wall.'
Khrushchev could not force the West out without risking nuclear war. Closing the border was a way to stop the refugees without touching West Berlin itself.
In the early hours of Sunday 13 August 1961, East German soldiers and police strung barbed wire along the whole border between East and West Berlin. Streets were torn up and train lines cut. Within days the wire began to be replaced by a wall of concrete blocks. Over time it grew into a line of walls, watchtowers and a cleared 'death strip' that ran right round West Berlin, about 155 kilometres in all. Guards had orders to shoot people trying to cross.
East Germany called it the 'Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart' and said it was there to keep Western spies out. Everyone could see that its real job was to keep East Germans in.
Families, friends and neighbours were cut off from each other overnight. Tens of thousands of East Berliners who worked in West Berlin lost their jobs. At least 140 people died at the Wall between 1961 and 1989. In August 1962 Peter Fechter, aged 18, was shot while climbing it and left to bleed to death in front of Western onlookers.
The flood of refugees shrank to a trickle. East Germany kept its skilled workers, and its economy became more stable. But the division of Germany now looked permanent. West Germans were angry, and the Mayor of West Berlin, Willy Brandt, led protests. Not until Christmas 1963 were West Berliners allowed short visits to relatives in the East.
In the short term, tension rose. Kennedy sent Vice-President Johnson and 1,500 extra soldiers to West Berlin to show that the USA would stay. In October 1961 a quarrel over the right of American officials to enter East Berlin brought American and Soviet tanks face to face at Checkpoint Charlie. They stood there for 16 hours, on 27 and 28 October. After secret messages between Kennedy and Khrushchev, the Soviet tanks pulled back a little, then the American ones did the same.
In the longer term, Berlin became calmer. The West protested but did nothing to pull the Wall down, because it stood on the Soviet side and did not threaten West Berlin. Kennedy said privately that a wall was far better than a war. Khrushchev had solved the refugee problem, so he quietly dropped his ultimatum and never signed the peace treaty. Berlin stopped being the main danger point of the Cold War.
The Wall was a propaganda gift to the West. A state that had to wall its people in could hardly claim that Communism was winning. On 26 June 1963 Kennedy visited West Berlin and told a vast crowd 'Ich bin ein Berliner' ('I am a Berliner'), promising that the USA stood with them.
Who won? Khrushchev had failed to push the West out of Berlin, which was his real aim. Kennedy had kept West Berlin, but had accepted the Wall. Each side could claim something, and neither had gone to war.
The Wall did not divide Germany: that border had been sealed since 1952. It surrounded West Berlin. It was built by East Germany, with Khrushchev's agreement, to keep East Germans in, not by the West. And don't muddle 1961 with the blockade of 1948-49: in 1961 the routes from West Germany into West Berlin stayed open.
Explain two effects of the building of the Berlin Wall on relations between the superpowers. [8 marks]
One effect was a short-term rise in tension that brought the superpowers close to fighting. The Wall made West Berliners fear that the USA would abandon them, so Kennedy sent Vice-President Johnson and 1,500 extra troops to show that the USA would stay. In October 1961, when American officials were stopped from entering East Berlin, American and Soviet tanks faced each other at Checkpoint Charlie for 16 hours. The Wall therefore led to a direct armed stand-off in which one mistake could have started a war.
A second effect was that Berlin became less of a danger point in the longer term. Khrushchev's demands of 1958 and 1961 had been driven largely by the refugee problem: more than two and a half million East Germans had left for the West by 1961, most of the later ones through Berlin. Because the Wall stopped the refugees, he no longer needed to force the West out, so he dropped his threat to sign a peace treaty with East Germany. Kennedy accepted the Wall because it left West Berlin untouched. This removed the main cause of the quarrel over Berlin.
What lifts this to the top level: each paragraph names one effect, backs it with precise facts, and then explains how the Wall caused it, using linking words like 'therefore' and 'because'.
This question is about the superpowers, so split families and lost jobs in Berlin will not score: keep to Kennedy, Khrushchev and their governments. Give two clearly separate effects. However well you explain it, one effect alone cannot score more than 4 of the 8 marks. For more help, see the lesson Paper 1 Question (b): Explain Two Effects.