During the Cold War the Berlin Wall was a powerful symbol of the world divided. Erected by the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in 1961, this concrete barrier physically separated the city of Berlin into two parts: The communist lands east Berlin and West Berlin, part of the Allied lands. While the Berlin Wall’s explicit raison d’être was to stop East German citizens from fleeing to the West, it was so much more than that. We will delve a bit further to see why this is.
The Wall as Symbol of Political Ideology
In Cold War, the Berlin Wall came to represent an actual physical divide between communism and capitalism. Countries that the east bloc included, East Germany, as well as Soviet style communism with certain personal freedoms. Western nations, such as the United States and its allies, embraced capitalism, and all that entailed — individual liberty, free markets.
The Soviet Union and its allies used the building of the Berlin Wall to show that they control over East Berlin, and to declare their support for communist ideology. And the wall was actually a physical manifestation of the pre-existing political systems and what tensions existed between them.
The Use of the Wall as Repressing Instrument
The Berlin Wall was a dividing line between what it should not have: ideologies — but it also served as a spear of oppression and control. But an important reason why East Germany could so consistently remain on par with West Germany was a result of fear: the East German government feared the loss of its workforce and its intellectuals to defect to the West, so the East German government implemented strict border controls and surveillance measures to prevent citizens of East Germany from defecting to the West.
The physical structure of the wall consisted of guard towers, barbed wire fences and a heavily fortified “death strip.” The wall earned a reputation as a symbol of human rights violations, dedicated to the dead that were killed by the many escape attempts that met with deadly force.
Wall as a Symbol: Sacrifice or Freedom?
The Berlin Wall also symbolized the sacrifices fact in seeking freedom but at the same time. Hundreds of East Germans placed themselves in mortal danger trying to escape through tunnels, around checkpoints and at the very top of the wall. The internal evidence of this racism was shown by their determination and willingness to meet danger, as desires to fight for their liberty and refusal to submit to communist control.
The wall became over the years a canvas for the expressions of hope and of unity, and a weapon against oppression or repression — a wall for so many families who suffered against the regime. The strength and the resilience of human spirit offered testimony to graffiti covered segments—the freedom of which and the longing for a reunited Germany cannot be under estimated by anybody.
The Symbolic End of the Fall of the Wall
The Berlin Wall symbolised and divided the physical and the symbolic for nearly 3 decades. But the pressure to change intensified as the Cold War wound down in the late 1980s.
People started showing up to peaceful demonstrations urging political reforms in East Germans in November 1989. But with growing public pressure, the East German government unexpectedly declared its citizens could cross the border into West Berlin without penalty. On the night of November 9 crowds crowded towards the Berlin Wall’s checkpoints and as the border guards caved in to the pressure, they opened the Berlin Wall. Strangers for decades, East Berliners and West Berliners thanked and wept when they crossed between the two sides, reuniting East and West.
The autumn of Berlin Wall metaphorically meant the end of the Cold War preference period and the break down of the communist creed in Eastern Europe. And the event helped lead the way to German reunification and, of course, it was a victory for democracy, for people’s freedom, for the power of people combining in pursuit of a common goal.
In Conclusion
During the Cold War, the Berlin Wall was a symbol of East/West ideology and also, incredibly, of physical division. It was much more than that; it was the conflict between communism and capitalism, but it was also a display of the measures to which inhuman regimes would take to maintain power. Yet 1989 saw its fall, which brought freedom to victory over oppression, and changed the course of history. Today, the Berlin Wall itself has been reduced to sheer mozzarella sticks of what was once a mighty wall confining a continent — now today it celebrates the resilience of the human spirit, the ongoing quest for liberty.