The Berlin Wall and the “Cold War”
Living in two worlds
After the end of the Second World War, tensions between the USA and the USSR become greater and greater. The disputes over the future of Germany were decisive, but there were also clashes around the world. Political and ideological differences develop into a deep division between West and East, which is strongly perceived and enforced by both sides. The period of this threatening division has gone down in history as the "Cold War".
1961: The Berlin Wall is erected
In June 1961, the number of GDR citizens moving to the West rises to around 31,400. In order to prevent a further increase in the number of people fleeing the GDR via West Berlin, the GDR government decides to rigorously seal off the border.
Construction of the Berlin Wall along the sector border begins on 13 August 1961. This wall, at which many people trying to flee to the West would die in the following years, would remain standing until the fall of the Berlin Wall on 9 November 1989. The 35th anniversary of the fall of the Wall will be celebrated in Berlin in November 2024.
1961 - 1989: Life with and in the GDR
The sealing off of the border is radical; all contact between citizens in West Berlin and the eastern part of the city is blocked. It would be ten years before East and West Berlin were connected via ten direct telephone lines in 1971.
On 26 June 1963, the President of the United States of America, John F. Kennedy, declares his support for the freedom of the western sectors with the words: "Ich bin ein Berliner".
In the same year, the Passport Agreement is concluded: It allows West Berliners to visit relatives in the eastern part of the city in 1963, 1964, 1965 and 1966.
There are repeated confrontations as well as endeavours: A plenary session of the German Bundestag on 7 April 1965 in the Berlin Congress Hall described the existence of the GDR state as a provocation and temporarily blocked transit traffic. Meanwhile, Soviet "jet fighters" fly over the building at low altitude to disrupt the session.
It is the former Governing Mayor of Berlin Willy Brandt who, after his election as Chancellor on 21 October 1969, begins his "New Ostpolitik" of small steps towards rapprochement, for which he is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1971.
The 1968s in West Berlin
In the 1960s, West Berlin was characterised by political unrest. The unrest reached its peak on 2 June 1967: a policeman shot and killed the student Benno Ohnesorg in the street during a protest against the Shah of Persia's visit to Berlin.
The hesitant investigation into the crime, but also the polarising reporting in the Bild newspaper, radicalised large sections of the student movement. When the leading figure of the student movement, Rudi Dutschke, was almost killed in an assassination attempt on 11 April 1968, political radicalisation continued to gather pace: The Extra-Parliamentary Opposition (APO), which emerged in 1966/1967, disintegrated into SPD party supporters, founders of the New Social Movements and radical splinter groups such as the terrorist Red Army Faction (RAF).
The 1970s: a cautious East-West rapprochement
After the signing of the Four-Power Agreement on Berlin on 3 June 1972, various subsequent agreements came into force: the facilitation of transit traffic on 17 December, the facilitation of travel and visits on 20 December and the "Agreement on the settlement of the issue of enclaves through territorial exchange". They bring about a cautious rapprochement between West Berlin and the eastern part of the city. Further improvements in neighbourly relations are achieved through the Basic Treaty of 21 June 1973.
West Berlin in the 1980s
In the 1980s, new social and political problems grew in West Berlin: In Kreuzberg, young people began to occupy flats, some of which had been vacant for years, as "squatters" and tried out alternative forms of housing.
In 1980 and 1981, over 160 squats were successfully converted into legal housing through negotiations with the owners and the Senate. However, the remaining squats were evicted by the Berlin Senate, accompanied by protests and street battles. One tragedy was the death of squatter Klaus-Jürgen Rattay, who was fatally injured by a BVG bus during a demonstration.
At the same time, Berlin develops into a pool of creativity in the 1980s. The band Ideal celebrates its greatest successes with songs such as "Wir stehn auf Berlin" and triggers the "Neue Deutsche Welle" with its legendary Rockpalast performance at the Waldbühne. At the final concert of the concert tour for their second album "Der Ernst des Lebens", Ideal performs in favour of the Berlin squatter scene.
Urban development in East & West
Impressive buildings were constructed in both parts of Berlin between 1961 and 1989:
The development of the centre of the "capital of the GDR" between Alexanderplatz and Marx-Engels-Platz, the Palace of the Republic and the "prefabricated housing estates" in Marzahn, Hohenschönhausen and Hellersdorf in the east were contrasted in the west by the New National Gallery by Mies van der Rohe, the new State Library and the Philharmonic Hall by Hans Scharoun, the International Congress Centre (ICC) and the high-rise housing estates of Gropiusstadt, Märkisches Viertel and Falkenhagener Feld.
On the western side, thirty years after the major International Building Exhibition Interbau of 1957,the International Building Exhibition 1984/1987 is intended to reclaim West Berlin's city centre as a residential location through critical reconstruction and careful urban renewal.
The 750th anniversary celebrations in 1987
In 1987, the parallel existence of West Berlin and the capital of the GDR becomes particularly noticeable:
The celebrations for the 750th anniversary of the city of Berlin took place separately. In the run-up to the 750th anniversary celebrations, urban development measures were implemented in both parts of Berlin: Among other things, the West designed Breitscheidplatz and decided to build the German Historical Museum, while the GDR had the Nikolai Quarter, Berlin's oldest residential area around the Nikolai Church, reconstructed in a historicising style. The Märkisches Museum and Klosterstraße underground stations are extensively remodelled.
Separate celebrations take place in East and West Berlin. US President Ronald Reagan demands in his speech in front of the Brandenburg Gate on 12 June 1987: "Mr Gorbachev open this gate. Mr Gorbachev tear down this wall!"
At the "Concert for Berlin" on Platz der Republik in June, "secret" listeners from the East Berlin side shouted: "The Wall must go!" and were harshly attacked by the GDR police.
9 November 1989: The Berlin Wall falls
In the 1980s, an increasing political and social destabilisation of the German Democratic Republic set in: a growing citizens' movement called for political change, analogous to "perestroika" and "glasnost" in the USSR.
In his speech to mark the 40th anniversary of the founding of the GDR on 7 October 1989, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Michael Gorbachev, called for reforms from those in power in East Berlin. Mass demonstrations, the founding of the "New Forum" and Erich Honecker's resignation in favour of Egon Krenz are the result.
Just a few days before the fall of the Wall, the largest demonstration in GDR history takes place. Artists and functionaries gathered on Alexanderplatz. They demand a new political beginning.
After a - possibly inadvertent - declaration of freedom of travel for GDR citizens on 9 November, events suddenly came thick and fast: The media spread the news that the Wall had fallen, border guards opened the border crossing at Bornholmer Strasse and people in East and West Berlin celebrated the end of the inner-German border all night long.
Here you will find historical places in today's Berlin:
