Berlin Wall
At the end of WWII the action that the allies took regarding conquered Germany was divide it into four zones with the occupants of Soviet Union, France, Great Britain, or the United States. This was the same that was done the German’s capital city, Berlin. In 1949, United States, Great Britain, and France combine to form West Germany. The Soviet Union made up East Germany. The economic system that was set up in West Germany was a capitalist society and government. The living conditions was really fair people who worked hard were living well and could buy whatever they wanted and travel as they pleased. There was a class ladder that it was followed up by.
The economic system that was set up in East Germany was under the Soviet Union which then was under Communist jurisdiction. The economy was not so good because after WWII the Soviets sent supplies found in factories back home to Russia. People did not have as much freedoms as West Germany. By the late 1950’s citizens in East Germany wanted out of East Germany and wanted to move to West Berlin. The people that were not caught along the way were young and was the main support for East Germany’s labor forces and population. East Germany lost 2.5 million people by 1961 and the government wanted to put a stop to it.
On August the 12th through the 13th of 1961 East Germans in the middle of the night stated to tear up the streets that entered into West Berlin. They strung up wires to separate the two cities of West and East Berlin. This prevented the East Germans from continuing their lives or seeing their family.
The Berlin Wall was 103 miles long and 12 feet tall and 4 feet wide. The first wall was constructed using barbed wire fences and concrete posts. Then after a few days was replaced with a stronger structure using concrete blocks. The third wall was then using steel girders. During 1975- 1980 the final construction of the Berlin Wall was its fourth version. This time it was using concrete slabs and had a pipe at the top so people will not crawl over it. The security got stronger using electric fences, watchtowers, and minefields.
Some 5,000 East German people made escape attempts and made it across. Some people just threw a robe over and climbed or others smashed a truck through it and booked it running. Anyone trying to escape, the guards had all the right to shoot anyone. An example of the brutality the guards had was an 18 year old who thought he could scale it but once almost to the top but lost energy and fell from the open fire of the guards. He was left on the ground once he fell to dies because he bled to death.
The fall of the Berlin Wall happened suddenly when the Communism began to weaken in Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia. The Berlin Walls boarder was opened as people saw people from East Berlin cross over. It was a reunion with family and friends. After the Berlin Wall came down Germany was a single German state again.