The Berlin Wall 1961 By: Jose Tasca, Chopa Montoya,

Lucas Caputo, Alina Claps and Tota Lupi.

World War II was over and Berlin, as well as Germany itself, was divided into four sectors; the American, British, French in the West, and Soviet in the East.

GERMANYBERLIN

BERLIN 1945

Causes of the Berlin Wall 1961● Khrushchev tried to intimidate the new US president Kennedy, demanding that all

western troops be removed from Berlin. Kennedy refused.

● East Berlin was poor and under strict communist rule, while the West was enjoying the growing prosperity.

● Many 1961, 3 million people had fled to the West. Many of them were skilled workers. By 1961 the flow was 1800 a day. This was an embarrassment to the USSR.

● Some wanted to leave for political reasons, others for economic ones.

● The Soviets claimed that the Americans were using West Berlin for spying and sabotage.

People involved

Walter Ulbricht

East German leaderJohn Kennedy

President of the USA until 1963

Nikita Kruschev

leader of the Soviet Union

August 13th 1961

BERLIN WALL

Barbed Wire Watchtowers

“The Death Strip”

Escaping East Germany

Peter Fechter 1962

Tunnel, dug by college students

Hot Air Balloon 1969

Horst Klein

Consequences of the Berlin Wall

● Around 5,000 people tried to escape over the wall, approximately 100 people were killed trying to cross the Wall.

● People who had previously worked in West Berlin lost their jobs.

● They were also separated from friends and family.

● America complain, but did nothing to destroy the wall. “It’s not a nice solution, but a wall is a whole lot better than a war”

● Tension grew and both sides started nuclear testing.

Ways in which the Berlin Wall was a symbol of the Cold War

● Concrete version of the Iron Curtain.

● Symbol of the divided world.

● Concrete symbol of the ideological divisions between the "free world" and the "communist world".

● Proof that capitalists could never work with communists.

● Symbol of Soviet oppression

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