Berlin Wall: The Symbol of Cold War (Essay Sample)

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Berlin Wall: The Symbol of Cold War.
After the world war two, German was divided into four; each zone was controlled by one of German’s allies. The western part of German was controlled by France, Britain and USA, the eastern part was controlled by USSR. Berlin was inside East German; however the three western allies also had zones in Berlin. These divisions led to disagreements, attempts to reunite the four zones were always unfruitful.
USSR was determined to rid West Berlin of the western allies and refused to cooperate with them. The western allies decided to unite so as to rebuild German economically and make it a democratic capitalist economy.
East German was important to USSR because they were using East German economic wealth to rebuild USSR. Communist governance had been established in East German at that time. The economies of East German and West German showed a lot of difference between them a short time after the war. West Germany experienced rapid growth characterized by improved living conditions (Sullivan, 759). On the other hand East German the economy was failing and the communist leadership restricted peoples’ freedom.
Between 1949 and 1961 many people approximately 2.5 million fled from East German they wanted to escape communist repression and also join their families. Those who fled included professional, skilled laborers and intellectuals causing the economy of East German to weaken. Stalin feared that the united West German would someday attack East German and accused them of interfering with East German. In an effort to prevent further escape East German decided to build the Berlin wall on the night of 16th August 1961. The wall was at first made of barbed wire and cider poles, it separated parts of Berlin under the Western allies rule from that under Soviet Union (Jerram, 53). The wall wrapped around West Berlin separating it completely from East German. All forms of communication including road, rail and telephone were cut off. The wall was later constructed with concrete and was heavily guarded.
In reaction to the blockage, Britain and USA organized airlifts of supplies to West Berlin instead of using military intervention. The Soviet Union could not stop the airlifts without causing a war. The Berlin wall physically symbolized the cold war and oppressive soviet rule.
The cold war was so called because there was no physical combat but a war of ideologies. It was a war of political and economic ideological differences between those supporting capitalism and those supporting communism. As a result of these differences Soviet Union restricted its relations with non communist areas, this came to known as the iron curtain. The two blocs tried to influence such areas as Africa, Middle East, Asia and Latin America to embrace their ideologies, usually through providing financial and military aid.
The Berlin wall led to the formation of pacts as a protective measure. Western powers formed the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The Soviet Union also formed an al...