Dividing a nation has not only a huge impact internationally but to its own citizens as well. The Berlin Wall, for twenty-eight years, separated friends, family, and a nation. Unable to agree on a German peace treaty after world war two, the US, Soviet Union, Great Britain, and France maintained a four power responsibility in Berlin (Harrison 53). Due to economic, political, and social consequences, the Berlin Wall divided Berlin into two very distinctively different cities. East Berlin was ruled under a Soviet communist regime, while West Berlin was ruled under the influence of the Western World. The division between East Germany and West Germany is what Winston Churchill called the “Iron Curtain” that fell across Europe, isolating its
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No one expected that a major city, once an economic superpower could be completely functioning and surviving after the war one second, and then physically divided into two so suddenly. Social and cultural differences between the two sides certainly played a huge role. When the Wall fell in 1989, many East Germans rushed into the West not knowing they would find so many new consumer goods and inventions that had been growing and developing for twenty eight years after the Berlin Blockade prohibited trade between the two Germany’s. Some of the most normal goods being sold in West Germany along with the rest of the Western world at the time seemed so outrageous for the Germans coming from East Berlin. The cleanliness of the Eastern side was nothing like the West. The East was considered for its citizens to have lived far more inferior lives, being controlled by the Soviets during the Cold War. The Wall was controlled and constantly closely surveyed by the GDR, making it nearly impossible for any Germans living in the East to escape to the Western side. A strip of land between the two sides was later known as the “Death Strip”. The death strip still is there, still cutting its great zigzagging pathway, which is an equally astonishing sight in Berlin today (Hilton 9). Both sides developed different opinions about what …show more content…
It symbolized the end of the ongoing tensions between the USA and the USSR but most importantly it signified the end of the Cold War. Through the political, economic, and social differences, the reality of the Berlin Wall brought an enormous amount of suffering on German citizens that wanted a better life for their family and friends. The Wall was a result of both internal and external pressures from both the capitalists and the communists. The Rise and fall of the Berlin Wall was an extraordinary event combined of political, economic and social differences, making it hard for us to imagine what it was like to split a huge growing nation down the middle by an iron concrete curtain, shielding the suffering of the other side from the rest of
No one expected that a major city, once an economic superpower could be completely functioning and surviving after the war one second, and then physically divided into two so suddenly. Social and cultural differences between the two sides certainly played a huge role. When the Wall fell in 1989, many East Germans rushed into the West not knowing they would find so many new consumer goods and inventions that had been growing and developing for twenty eight years after the Berlin Blockade prohibited trade between the two Germany’s. Some of the most normal goods being sold in West Germany along with the rest of the Western world at the time seemed so outrageous for the Germans coming from East Berlin. The cleanliness of the Eastern side was nothing like the West. The East was considered for its citizens to have lived far more inferior lives, being controlled by the Soviets during the Cold War. The Wall was controlled and constantly closely surveyed by the GDR, making it nearly impossible for any Germans living in the East to escape to the Western side. A strip of land between the two sides was later known as the “Death Strip”. The death strip still is there, still cutting its great zigzagging pathway, which is an equally astonishing sight in Berlin today (Hilton 9). Both sides developed different opinions about what …show more content…
It symbolized the end of the ongoing tensions between the USA and the USSR but most importantly it signified the end of the Cold War. Through the political, economic, and social differences, the reality of the Berlin Wall brought an enormous amount of suffering on German citizens that wanted a better life for their family and friends. The Wall was a result of both internal and external pressures from both the capitalists and the communists. The Rise and fall of the Berlin Wall was an extraordinary event combined of political, economic and social differences, making it hard for us to imagine what it was like to split a huge growing nation down the middle by an iron concrete curtain, shielding the suffering of the other side from the rest of