Berlin Wall Anniversary Sparks Look At History
November 9 marks the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. We spoke with British historian Frederick Taylor, an expert on the Berlin Wall, author of the book The Berlin Wall - A World Divided 1961-1989, about what prompted East German authorities to build the wall in the first place.
Under the terms of the 1945 Yalta Agreement, the victorious allies of World War II divided Germany into four sectors, or zones of occupation: the American, British, French and Soviet zones.
About 160 kilometers inside the Soviet zone lay Germany's war scarred capital Berlin. The city was also divided into four sectors along the same lines as Germany.
As the post-war period went from months into years, tensions emerged between the Soviets and the three Western allies. In 1949, the Western zones of Germany split from the communist, Soviet-allied government in East Germany - the area that surrounded Berlin. Historian Frederick Taylor.
"Berlin, sitting inside the Soviet zone - a kind of Trojan horse, if you will, of capitalism as the Soviets and their German communist allies saw it - became this symbol of a Western way of life continuing to exist inside what was increasingly the frozen and repressive Cold War Soviet bloc," said Frederick Taylor.
Taylor says a border was built between East and West Germany.
"By 1952, in fact, there was a fortified border where you could be shot for trying to cross it from East to West," he said. "But in Berlin, because of the peculiar status of the city as a military-controlled area - and it continued to be controlled by military law, even after the two German states were set up - there were checkpoints and so on but people could actually travel pretty easily between East and West Berlin. This meant that East Germans, who were tired of the kind of poor standard of living and the lack of freedom in the communist-ruled East Germany, which by 1951 in fact was poorer than it had been four, three years earlier, not richer - could do so."
Taylor says between 1949 and 1961, East Germany - out of a population of 17 million - lost around two and a half million people to West Germany.
"In effect, what was obvious to the East German government and indeed, eventually, to their Soviet masters, by the end of the 1950s, as we go into 1960-61, was that their country was bleeding to death - bleeding its best and its brightest to the West," said Taylor. "So something had to be done about it. And the question was what."
The historian says East German leaders had options.
"They could have offered reforms, they could have offered a more efficient and productive economy," he said. "They could have offered the kinds of political freedoms and freedom of movement that most educated and civilized people require. But of course they didn't - they were attached to the Stalinist model of a command economy, now found in very, very few places in the world, possibly only in North Korea and Cuba, really."
Taylor says the East German leadership felt the only way to stop the exodus of East Germans to West Germany, was to build a physical barrier. And they decided to do it between East and West Berlin...
..."It's the great tragedy of this time," said Taylor."It was the dashed hopes, the disappointment, the claustrophobia, the ghastly feeling of this lack of freedom of movement, the freedom to breathe, the freedom to feel, I think - that when I talked to people who lived through all that, that's always the most striking thing. I think it's very hard for us to understand."
Read entire article at Voice of America
Under the terms of the 1945 Yalta Agreement, the victorious allies of World War II divided Germany into four sectors, or zones of occupation: the American, British, French and Soviet zones.
About 160 kilometers inside the Soviet zone lay Germany's war scarred capital Berlin. The city was also divided into four sectors along the same lines as Germany.
As the post-war period went from months into years, tensions emerged between the Soviets and the three Western allies. In 1949, the Western zones of Germany split from the communist, Soviet-allied government in East Germany - the area that surrounded Berlin. Historian Frederick Taylor.
"Berlin, sitting inside the Soviet zone - a kind of Trojan horse, if you will, of capitalism as the Soviets and their German communist allies saw it - became this symbol of a Western way of life continuing to exist inside what was increasingly the frozen and repressive Cold War Soviet bloc," said Frederick Taylor.
Taylor says a border was built between East and West Germany.
"By 1952, in fact, there was a fortified border where you could be shot for trying to cross it from East to West," he said. "But in Berlin, because of the peculiar status of the city as a military-controlled area - and it continued to be controlled by military law, even after the two German states were set up - there were checkpoints and so on but people could actually travel pretty easily between East and West Berlin. This meant that East Germans, who were tired of the kind of poor standard of living and the lack of freedom in the communist-ruled East Germany, which by 1951 in fact was poorer than it had been four, three years earlier, not richer - could do so."
Taylor says between 1949 and 1961, East Germany - out of a population of 17 million - lost around two and a half million people to West Germany.
"In effect, what was obvious to the East German government and indeed, eventually, to their Soviet masters, by the end of the 1950s, as we go into 1960-61, was that their country was bleeding to death - bleeding its best and its brightest to the West," said Taylor. "So something had to be done about it. And the question was what."
The historian says East German leaders had options.
"They could have offered reforms, they could have offered a more efficient and productive economy," he said. "They could have offered the kinds of political freedoms and freedom of movement that most educated and civilized people require. But of course they didn't - they were attached to the Stalinist model of a command economy, now found in very, very few places in the world, possibly only in North Korea and Cuba, really."
Taylor says the East German leadership felt the only way to stop the exodus of East Germans to West Germany, was to build a physical barrier. And they decided to do it between East and West Berlin...
..."It's the great tragedy of this time," said Taylor."It was the dashed hopes, the disappointment, the claustrophobia, the ghastly feeling of this lack of freedom of movement, the freedom to breathe, the freedom to feel, I think - that when I talked to people who lived through all that, that's always the most striking thing. I think it's very hard for us to understand."