Berlin Wall History, Symbolism, and Cold War Legacy

Introduction

The Berlin Wall was a physical, concrete barrier erected to divide East Germany from West Germany during the Cold War era. The Wall was constructed in 1961 and remained standing until the early 1990s, when it began to be demolished as a result of the Cold War ending and the fuller implementation of Soviet policies of perestroika and glasnost under Gorbachev.¹ While the Wall had practical applications, it ultimately served as a symbol of the ideological divide between East and West — between the social, economic, and political forces of the United States in particular and those of the Soviet Union.

This paper asks how the Wall came into being, what its history can tell us about the nature of the Cold War conflict, and what its significance as a symbol can tell us about our own time's seeming continuation of the Cold War sentiment that pitted the U.S. against Russia. The research question this paper aims to answer is: What did the Berlin Wall signify for the men and women of the Cold War era, and what was the nature of the hope that its fall inspired in the early 1990s? This paper will attempt to answer that question by examining the post-war period prior to the Wall's construction, the history of the Wall and its meaning for both East and West Germany, and its larger symbolic significance as a sign of two cultures clashing.

The Post-War Period

World War II ended in 1945 with the Allies victorious over the Axis. One of the peculiarities of this war was that the Allies were not very trusting of one another — and this would become all too evident in the post-war period, when the Soviets and the U.S. became rivals on the global stage. Having forged a useful alliance with the Soviets in the defeat of Germany, the U.S. immediately backtracked from this relationship in the aftermath of the war as it sought to influence the world in light of its own newfound power and ambition. This ambition became more and more evident as the U.S., through the Marshall Plan's resources, began funding covert operations and CIA front organizations — such as Radio Free Europe — to monitor and destabilize Communist forces in Europe, Asia, and South and Central America.²

The tension between the Soviet Union and the U.S. came to a head over Cuba in 1962, when Kennedy and Khrushchev nearly came to the brink of launching a nuclear strike against one another. The Cuban Missile Crisis was averted through negotiations between the two leaders at the last minute, and a direct "hot line" was established between the Kremlin and the White House as a result of this standoff, to prevent future conflicts from escalating to such a dangerous level.³ However, with the assassination of Kennedy the following year, the escalation of the war in Vietnam as a containment effort, and the continuation of spy-versus-spy operations on both sides, the Cold War became a full-blown reality. All military, intelligence, social, cultural, political, economic, and religious tools available to both sides were employed to monitor or undermine the rival power. The Berlin Wall was erected during this period for both practical and ideological purposes, which shall now be examined in more detail.

Germany After the War

Germany was divided after World War II as part of the Potsdam Conference of 1945, following Germany's unconditional surrender. The Allies separated Germany into four zones: France overseeing the southwest, the U.S. the south, Britain the northwest, and the Soviets the entire eastern half. The divide ran right through the city of Berlin, which between the two world wars had been the center of Germany's Weimar Republic culture — a city known for its vibrant nightlife of cabarets and cultural decadence.⁴ Berlin was thus pulled in two different directions at once, neither of which was essentially Germanic or true to the city's own culture. The U.S. effectively became overseer of West Germany and the Soviets of East Germany, with Berlin as the heart of the occupied territories.

From the beginning, tensions existed. In 1948, the Soviets attempted to blockade West Berlin — believing that the entire city should be under Soviet control — but an Allied airlift foiled this attempt. As a result, the Soviets tightened their grip over East Berlin. A mass exodus of millions began from East to West Berlin as Germans sought to escape the Soviet stranglehold over their lives and culture. By the beginning of the 1960s, roughly 1,000 Germans were fleeing Soviet-occupied Germany on a daily basis.⁵

Conclusion

In conclusion, the Berlin Wall was a symbol of power and defiance in the Cold War era. It was a symbol, in fact, of the Cold War itself — with its cold, concrete surface flanked by guards patrolling from machine-gun turrets. It was militarism planted in the middle of Berlin, cutting friends from friends and families from families. It was a sign of the cultural sterility and destruction occurring on both sides of the Wall in different forms. It was evidence of the fear and paranoia that had erupted in the post-war period, culminating in the Cuban Missile Crisis and worsening, in a separate way, following the assassination of Kennedy, who had, to some degree, sought a more temperate approach to the U.S.-Soviet relationship. Berlin happened to be the stage upon which these geopolitical fears were most clearly enacted. The unfortunate consequence was that everyday Germans and Berliners paid the heaviest price — just as everyday Syrians and Iraqis are paying their own price while Cold War 2.0 continues between Russia and the West.