Berlin Wall Dbq

In the summer of 1961, more than 200,000 East Germans had defected to West Germany, increasing the tension between the East and the West to a level that an outbreak of violence was close to occurring. The supporters of the wall said that the wall helped prevent German neo-Nazis from move onto the East. Also, the supporters saw the wall as a sign of the division of Germany and hoped for peaceful negotiations to occur. Those who opposed the wall said that it was a sign that East Germany was going bankrupt. Those who opposed the wall also saw the wall as a violation of the Four-Power status by the Soviet Union. There were tensions between the two sides of Germany and their views on the Berlin Wall greatly differed. The supporters of the Berlin Wall saw it as a necessity because the West Berlin government were bringing danger of conflict. By the West Berlin Senate rejecting the proposals for negotiations, they stepped up agitation and as a result the wall had to be put in place. With the wall the supporters believed they had stopped an important action from occurring “West Berlin’s becoming the starting point for a military conflict (What You Should …show more content…
The flow of refugees was seen as the people wanting to escape the zone because they were fully aware of their hopelessness in the situation. The refugees abandoning their homeland was believed to be the only way of to be able to practice their self-determination. The thought that “these people have shown the world what they really want: they want freedom, not bondage (Speech to the Bundestag Condemning the Wall, Konrad Adenauer), shows that the wall was a form of demeaning those within the boundaries and making them seem as lesser. This action of making the citizens feel as lesser caused for the migration and that those within the wall reject the thought that they oppressed by the