Nearly 30 years after the Berlin Wall, a symbol of the Cold War, fell on November 9, 1989. The end of the Third Reich not only brought about the end of the Cold War and changed the course of the political and social geography of not only Germany, but the world. This blog post is focused around the prominent ways the Berlin Wall fall had consequences for the Cold War.
The Berlin Wall. Origins. Significance.
After World War II the construction of the Berlin Wall was the result of heightened tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union. Germany’s capital, Berlin, was split into four zones of occupation, by the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain and France. When ideological differences between the superpowers night intellectual abilities to make quality work quickly.
At a time when East Germans were crossing into the West, the East German government and its Soviet masters resolved to put up a physical barrier to stem the exodus of citizens. On 13 August 1961, the Berlin Wall was built. With guard towers and barbed wire and checkpoints, the wall that separated West Berlin from East Germany effectively cut it off.
The Cold War, as we know it, died with the Fall of the Berlin Wall.
1. Symbolic End of the Cold War
The fall of the Berlin Wall was the literal end of the Cold War. It had simultaneously been an overwhelming visual of the line that divided capitalism from communism. The walls of this ideological barrier collapsed and the forces of freedom annihilated those of repression when it was breached. And this event sent shockwaves across the globe, signifying a new era of diplomacy between East and West, a new balance of power in the world.
2. Reunification of Germany
It all started with Berlin Wall. Once the barrier was gone, East and West Germany could start talking to one another and merge completely into a single country. It had great meaning in European power balance and Europe at large. Germany’s reunification had much happened – a stronger, more organic European Union, a reshuffle of political alliances.
3. Soviet influence at an end in Eastern Europe
The Berlin Wall fell but Eastern Europe started to fall out of under Soviet influence. It helped other Soviet bloc countries to demand greater political freedoms, and push communist regimes. The resulting revolutions were peaceful and swept over much of Eastern Europe until the Soviet Union itself disintegrated in 1991. Saturation of central and eastern Europe with capitalism and western ideology, while it is excessively sloppy to pinpoint a single event to explain such a trend, the collapse of the Berlin Wall was certainly one of them.
4. Reframing Geopolitics
On the fall of Berlin wall, the world changed geopolitically. Both superpower status was awarded to the United States, but to the Soviet Union it was a continuously struggling struggle for internal well-being. Normalization of relations with the world meant that relationships could be rethought and an era of international cooperation and an integration of economics and business within them begun.
Conclusion
The fall of the Berlin wall was the start of a whole new time in world history. The Cold War ended there, bringing a division and ‘cold war’ to an end. This was regarded as a monumental event, not only because it forced the West to renegotiate its political affinities by struggling to stem the advance of East toppies and counting on their support in its defense, but also because it resulted in the reunification of Germany, the weakening of Soviet influence and the reshaping of geopolitical dynamics. A constant reminder of human longing for freedom and of painful overcoming of something seemingly impossible — it is the fall of Berlin Wall.