The Berlin Wall's Historic Implications

Berliners celebrate the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989. Photo from http: //www.rjgeib.com/biography/europe/germany/berlin.html What started as a compromise to divide Germany at the end of World War II became a conflict that defined history for almost 30 years. The impact of the Berlin Wall was immediate and long lasting -- from its appearance on Aug. 13, 1961 to its opening on Nov. 9, 1989. It was an relentless symbol of the Cold War, of the very different political ideologies that existed on either side of it, and of the nuclear war historians say it came close to creating. West Berlin became a democratic island in the middle of communist East Germany. Families and friends were divided for decades and the world saw what the lives of Germans were like under democracy and communism, split only by a barbed-wire-topped wall of concrete. As progress and prosperity slowed on the East Berlin side, West Berlin flourished economically, and politically the world held its breath as the Soviets and Americans tested each other’s resolves. The wall changed the world in ways that never could have been imagined when it was built.