November 9th, 2015 marks 26 years since the
fall of the Berlin Wall.
It represented not only a physical barrier
for the people of Germany, but an ideological
divide that split the world in two.
What many people don’t know about the Berlin
Wall is that it did not run along the border
between East and West Germany.
Actually, it only encapsulated West Berlin,
which was located deep in the heart of East
Germany.
So we wanted to know: why was the Berlin wall
built in the first place, and how did West
Berlin end up as a political island?
Well, to put some of this in perspective,
it's important to note the state of Germany
just after World War Two.
The Germans lost the war, ceding the former
Nazi power to the victorious Allies.
The US, The UK, France, and The USSR carved
up Germany.
The easternmost portion, running along what
was called the Oder Neisse line, was allocated
to Poland to make up for land lost during
the war.
The rest of the country was split into four
zones.
The Soviet Union took over the zone to the
east.
The US, the UK, and France occupied their
own zones in the Western half of the country.
This just left Berlin.
Technically, Berlin was in the Soviet Union’s
territory.
But since Berlin was the capital of Germany,
as well as the former home of the Nazi regime,
it held significant historical and political
value.
So to keep things fair, Berlin was carved
up into four zones, mirroring the rest of
Germany.
Now, this arrangement worked … briefly,
but soon, the USSR began planning to take
over the rest of Berlin, then Germany, then
Europe.
At the time, the USSR was making a big push
to expand socialism throughout its territories,
including East Germany.
So to accomplish this, the Soviet Union started
restricting access to West Berlin, creating
one of the first flashpoints of the Cold War,
known as the Berlin Blockade.
And things only got worse from there -- the
USSR began restricting emigration from their
half of Germany.
They built a massive wall, known as the “Inner-German
Border” running down the middle of the country,
with barbed wire, alarms, mines, and thousands
of East German soldiers…
By many accounts, life in the socialist, East
Germany was pretty abysmal, particularly compared
to the democratic and prospering West Germany.
Thousands of East Germans defected, using
a direct subway line between West Berlin and
West Germany to bypass the closed border.
To put an end to this, the Soviets erected
the Berlin wall in 1961, running nearly 100
miles long.
It completely surrounded West Berlin, which
may seem counterintuitive because you’d
think they’d create a border to protect
their own territory.
But actually this wall was to keep their citizens
from defecting to the West.
The wall would stay in place for nearly three
decades.
Even though this wall was much smaller and
less elaborate than the “Inner-German Border,”
the Berlin wall came to symbolize the conflict
between socialist and democratic nations.
In 1989, the Berlin Wall came down, marking
an end to the USSR’s stranglehold on East
Germany.
If you want to learn about what actually brought
down the Berlin Wall, check out this video
by Seeker Daily up at the top.
And to see more of me, check out my videos
on Fusion, including this one about how robots
and avatars can be used to treat depression
down at the bottom.
