1. The Berlin Wall 1961
By: Jose Tasca, Chopa Montoya,
Lucas Caputo, Alina Claps and Tota Lupi.
2. World War II was over and Berlin, as well as Germany itself, was
divided into four sectors; the American, British, French in the West,
and Soviet in the East.
GERMANY
BERLIN
BERLIN 1945
3. Causes of the Berlin Wall 1961
● Khrushchev tried to intimidate the new US president Kennedy, demanding that all
western troops be removed from Berlin. Kennedy refused.
● East Berlin was poor and under strict communist rule, while the West was enjoying the
growing prosperity.
● Many 1961, 3 million people had fled to the West. Many of them were skilled workers.
By 1961 the flow was 1800 a day. This was an embarrassment to the USSR.
● Some wanted to leave for political reasons, others for economic ones.
● The Soviets claimed that the Americans were using West Berlin for spying and
sabotage.
8. Consequences of the Berlin Wall
● Around 5,000 people tried to escape over the wall, approximately
100 people were killed trying to cross the Wall.
● People who had previously worked in West Berlin lost their jobs.
● They were also separated from friends and family.
● America complain, but did nothing to destroy the wall. “It’s not a nice
solution, but a wall is a whole lot better than a war”
● Tension grew and both sides started nuclear testing.
9. Ways in which the Berlin Wall was a symbol of the Cold War
● Concrete version of the Iron Curtain.
● Symbol of the divided world.
● Concrete symbol of the ideological divisions between the "free world" and the
"communist world".
● Proof that capitalists could never work with communists.
● Symbol of Soviet oppression
