Berlin, forming West Berlin. East Berliners, however, were not as lucky. East Germany was established as to not be outdone by the Americans, on October 7th 1949. East Germany was under the control of the Russian Soviet Union, and therefore became a communist nation. The Russians, when forming the German Democratic Republic, only handed over administrative authority not autonomous authority and therefore had the ability to integrate into East Germany’s government, military and secret police. East and West Berlin became the epicentre for the Cold War and was where the two competing ideologies where paced geographically side by side, and the differences between the two systems became apparent. Adopting a social-historic perspective, this essay will examine Berlin during the year of the Berlin Wall, which will prove that communism was not a viable wand sustainable way to establish a society.
The economy of Berlin, both just before the Berlin wall and during the years it stood, differed greatly between the two sides of the city and this affected people’s lifestyles and living conditions. Shortly after the war the living conditions within East and West Germany, and more prominently, East and West Berlin became distinctly different. The western powers helped West Germany and West Berlin itself to establish a democratic system and under this system, West Berlin experienced rapid growth in their economy, an “economic miracle” according to historian Jennifer Rosenberg (2013). This rapid growth meant that West Berliners were able to earn more money, and spend it on different items, increasing Berlin’s economy even more. The speech given by President Ronald Reagan in 1987 when he addressed the Berlin people stated that from the 1950 to 1960 alone, West Berlin’s standard of living increased dramatically.
“… The German leaders reduced tariffs, expanded free trade, and lowered taxes. From 1950 to 1960 alone, the standard of living in West Germany and Berlin doubled.” (Reagan in Reaganfoundation.org, 2014)
The people of West Berlin, although not happy with the measures taken by the East German government by building the Wall, lived their lives in relative comfort and prosperity. They had the ability to purchase goods that increased the comfort of their lives.
East Berlin, unfortunately, did not experience the same economic growth. East Germany was under Soviet control and therefore was established as a Communist society. Under this system of control, however, East Berlin did not flourish, instead becoming stagnant in development. The “brain drain” which was the mass fleeing of highly trained professionals from East Berlin to West Berlin was one of the main reasons for the construction of the Berlin Wall. This mass exodus of workers meant that a growing labour shortage led to a struggling economy. The living standards of East Berlin were very poor, due to the inability of East Berliners to afford any items that would improve their lifestyles. Fidel Castro, Prime Minister of Cuba and communist revolutionary, stated “Capitalism is using its money; we socialists throw it away.” (History in an Hour, 2011). What Mr. Castro said was that the capitalist system invested its money back into its own economy where as communism wasted its money on trying to “catch up” to the capitalists. This is what happened in Berlin. The West Berlin government invested its money to re-establishing its economy, whereas the East Berlin government used its money for military resources to keep the people of East Berlin in. The East German government struggled to control the people of East Germany and Berlin, hence why the Berlin Wall was constructed.
The actions of the governments controlling Berlin were varied in terms of addressing the needs of the people of Berlin. When the wall went up on August 13th 1961, the Western powers were initially not too concerned with the welfare of Berlin, with the British ambassador to West Berlin, Sir Christopher Steel, stating “I must say that I personally have always wondered why the East Germans have waited so long to seal this boundary.” (Historytoday.com, 2014). On the day that the wall was constructed, President Kennedy stated “It’s not a very nice solution but a wall is a hell of a lot better than a war,” (Cohen and Major, 2004). But as the years progressed, the American government did not want to seem as though they were abandoning West Berlin, so in June 1963, the newly elected president Mr, John F. Kennedy visited Berlin and made his now famous speech, ‘Ich Bin Ein Berliner’ which translated into ‘I am a Berliner’. This was Kennedy’s way of saying ‘I am one with the people of Berlin’ who he claimed were ‘free men’ and as he later stated with the closing words “All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin, and therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words Ich bin ein Berliner.” He meant that as a free man of America, he was, by proxy, a citizen of the free West Berlin. Kennedy went on to state that those people who believed in communism or those who believed that communism could coexist with the Western world should come to Berlin and witness for themselves how well communism worked as a social system. Kennedy’s speech was not only seen as a promise to West Berlin that the western powers would not abandon them, but also as a criticism of the East Berlin and Soviet controlled goverment, when he states “… democracy is not perfect, but we have never had to put up a wall to keep our people in.” (American History: From Revolution to Reconstruction and beyond, 2012).
As the number fleeing of people from East to West Berlin increased, the government of East Germany and in particular Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, decided that extreme measures of control were required if East Germany was remain a sustainable society. Only months before the construction of the wall, on the 17th of June 1961, East German government leader Walter Ulbricht stated “No one has the intention of building a wall,” (Cohen and Major, 2004), which ultimately proved untrue as on August 13th, the Berlin Wall was constructed to staunch the flow of refugees out of East Germany. The government of East Berlin tried to convince the people of East Berlin that it was a precautionary measure against “anti-fascists” but the people were sceptical as the borders were only closed to East Germans, not West Germans. Although the wall may have succeeded in slowing down the refugees, many more still crossed, but many more died in the attempt. Although the number of deaths is debated, the most widely accepted number is approximately 125 deaths (Corbett, 2006). The very first death on the Berlin Wall was that of eighteen year old Peter Fechter on the afternoon of August 17th 1962. It was reported that he and another eighteen year old companion attempted to cross the wall, but Peter was struck down by East Berlin border guards. West Berlin police officers stood on ladders and threw bandages and ask for his name, but did not cross the wall for fear of retribution from the East Berlin Guards. After yelling for help for approximately an hour, his screams died down and East Berlin officers collected him. Later he was announced dead to the people of East Berlin. Pictures taken by western photographers of the young man’s death were shown around the world and Peter’s death became a symbol of the East German border guards’ cruelty (Brecht, 2014).
The closest the opposing powers came to actual conflict was at Checkpoint Charlie, from the 27th to the 28th of October 1961 when American and Soviet tanks stood 150 meters away from each other, ready to fire. This was due to the fact that American officials were being refused entry to East Berlin, despite the postwar agreements. The tanks were situated at a standoff for sixteen hours, until President Kennedy and Soviet leader Khrushchev came to the agreement allowing American officials access to East Berlin (Colitt, 2011). This was as close to a nuclear war as the cold war got to, which would have put the people of Berlin on the front line, and with the way the people of East Berlin reacted to the wall itself, would have been disastrous for communism as a system of government.
The Berlin Wall itself and the resulting division of Berlin effected many communities and families during the years that it remained for. One such case of a division of family was the case of Sigrid Paul who was separated from her son for almost five years. Due to a complicated birth, Sigrid’s son was sent to a Western hospital a few months before the wall went up and he was trapped there, without his mother until he was four and a half years old, when he was deemed healthy enough to return home. During the separation, Sigrid had become desperate; she planned her own escape across the wall until the person supplying fake passports had been caught. She then housed three students who were planning their escape from East Berlin. She had been very careful not to ask what their route was because, as she told The Guardian journalist Lena Corner in an interview in 2009, "The Stasi were almost certain to have bugged the house and black limousines were often parked in front." After the students left, Sigrid discovered that they had walked into a Stasi trap. Sigrid was not the only person to contemplate escaping across the wall. Leslie Colitt, a student of West Berlin, was faced with the almost impossible task of trying to smuggle his fiancé across the wall. He was successful, due to using his sister’s passport, to cross the wall and retrieve his fiancée, Ingrid. However, many others were not successful either escaping the wall or retrieving loved ones from the other side, leaving families separated for up to 30 years. This had a devastating effect on the overall moral of the whole of Berlin. Writer Lisa Selvidge lived in Berlin from 1984 to 1989 and stated “I often went to the East and grew fascinated by this other world, so close and yet so different. There was a sense of oppression, hopelessness but, often, humor.” (Dias, The Guardian, 2009). Lisa wrote the book The Last Dance over the Berlin Wall, and she used the East-West Berlin division as the central theme to her novel. Upon arriving in West Berlin, Lisa remarked
“..I believed then that God had been defeated by atheism and the new battle was between communism and capitalism: one provided for you, the other took from you. Naturally I was for the one providing. But, even then, I knew that 'they ' should not be doing so by creating a state of fear, and the Wall was never far away as a reminder…”(Dias, The Guardian, 2009)
This went to prove that, even to outsiders, the difference between democracy and communism was severe and very prevalent. This also showed that communism was not widely liked and therefore should not have been implemented in Berlin.
East and West Berlin became the epicentre for the Cold War and was where the two competing ideologies where paced geographically side by side, and the differences between the two systems became apparent. Examining Berlin through social historic perspective showed that the poor economy of East Berlin, the reactions of the opposing government residing over Berlin, and the impact of the Wall on families proved that communism was not a viable way to establish Berlin. Berlin itself is still healing from the emotional scarring left by the wall, and stories coming to light, like Sigrid’s prove that the Wall and communism in general has left and everlasting negative impact on Berlin.
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