The Berlin Wall, 1961
- People had been fleeing to the west through Berlin for many years "Brain Drain" (3 mil.)
- Krushchev wants Kennedy to pull out of Berlin and make it a free city
- Kennedy increases US strength
- Krushchev responds by building a wall around West Berlin
- Both leaders were accused of being soft in Berlin and fixed this by ordering more tests of nuclear weapons
Summary
On August 13, 1961, the Communist government of the German Democratic Republic (GDR, or East Germany) began to build a barbed wire and concrete wall between East and West Berlin. The official purpose of this Berlin Wall was to keep Western "fascists" from entering East Germany and undermining the socialist state, but it primarily served the objective of stemming mass defections from East to West. The Berlin Wall stood until November 9, 1989, when the head of the East German Communist Party announced that citizens of the GDR could cross the border whenever they pleased. That night, ecstatic crowds swarmed the wall. Some crossed freely into West Berlin, while others brought hammers and picks and began to chip away at the wall itself. To this day, the Berlin Wall remains one of the most powerful and enduring symbols of the Cold War.