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 Social Impacts |
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* “All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin. And, therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words ‘Ich bin ein Berliner.’ ” John F. Kennedy’s 1963 speech in West Berlin. * Some 11,000 people living near the border on the East German side lost their homes, farms and businesses because of the wall. Entire towns and villages were divided. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inner_German_border) * During a conversation with a group of West Berliners author Peter Robinson asked if they had gotten used to the wall. One man raised his arm and pointed: “My sister lives 20 miles in that direction,” he said, “I haven’t seen her in more than two decades. Do you think I can get used to that?” (www.historynet.com/culture/foreign_affairs/3030081.html) Analysis: * On the Western side, the wall became a hated symbol of the Cold War; on the Eastern side it was considered a blockade against freedom and called the Wall of Shame. John F. Kennedy highlighted the worldwide impact of this division in his June 26, 1963 speech. * West Berlin became an island. Two million people were unable to visit the surrounding area, including their relatives, without the special permission that could be very hard to get. Families were separated by the wall, which made it impossible for people to communicate with those on the other side. This impact is highlighted in the book How Ronald Reagan Changed My Life by Peter Robinson, author of President Reagan’s 1987 speech at the Berlin Wall. Positive Social Impacts of the Wall: * German propaganda claimed that the wall kept skilled workers from being “induced by refined methods unworthy of the dignity of man to give up their secure existence in the GDR to work in West Germany or West Berlin.” (http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/wall.htm ) * “Our most effective way to demonstrate the absurdity of anti-communism is to increase the attractiveness of socialism and to demonstrate its values and advantages to the entire world, above all by fulfilling our main task, the unity of economic and social policy. (http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/brd1.htm) Analysis: *Propaganda put out by the German Democratic Republic (East German government) explains that the wall kept skilled workers from being seduced by the West and leaving the country. In other words, the wall was protecting East Berliners from the devious methods of the West and its capitalism. *GDR propaganda also maintained that the working class fared worse in West Germany. In a 1979 speech to party officials, East German leader Erich Honecker explained that people had to be told that the West Germans lived under a system of class dictatorship in which the upper class uses its educational system and the media to brainwash the citizens. |
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| Economic Impacts |
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*The standard of living and wages were very low in the East compared with those in the West, according to BBC journalist Charles Wheeler who reported on the Cold War. “It was really two worlds in those days ... there was a frightful housing shortage, there were no consumer goods in the shops. If you went to East Berlin, you’d see in the food shops just endless jars of pickles and things, whereas West Berlin then was really like West Berlin today. It was a prosperous Western city.” (http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/coldwar/interviews/episode-7/wheeler2.html) Analysis: * Because the East German government required everyone to work on collective state owned farms and businesses, there was no incentive to work hard or excel. East Germany became referred to as the “workers’ paradise’’ because all workers had to do was meet the minimum of their quotas. * Economic progress all but stood still on the East German side. The landscape has been described as drab and dreary, a world in black and white regulated by the state. The wait to own a car was 20 years, and it took people that long to save up for one. Apartments were given out by the state. The economy was not geared to consumers. Citizens were not allowed to privately trade or own land. Even though everyone had a house and food, they could not afford any more than the minimum. Positive Economic Impacts of the Wall: * The wall kept an East German workforce in place and kept that economy from crumbling. “Between 1945 and 1961, when the wall was built, 2.5 million people fled to the west through West Berlin, reducing the East German population by about 15 percent. Most of the emigrants were young and well qualified; East Germany was losing its educated professionals and skilled workers at a rate that risked making the Communist state totally unviable.” (The Berlin Wall, Frederick Taylor) Analysis: *Even though East Germans didn’t have much, there was little homelessness or unemployment. The government took care of its citizens. |
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| Political Impacts |
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* “Berlin was the pivot on which the Cold War turned during the critical period of the late 1950s / early 1960s. If the Cold War was ever going to turn hot Germany always seemed the most probable cause, and Berlin the likely trigger. ... Even if a crisis had nothing to do with Berlin, that was where it was likely to end up because that was where the West was at its most vulnerable, where the famous choices between suicide or surrender, holocaust or humiliation could well be confronted.” (Lawrence Freedman’s essay in John Gearson and Kori Schake. The Berlin Wall Crisis: Perspectives on Cold War Alliances. New York: Palgrave Macmillan) Analysis: * The Berlin Wall brought the Soviet Union and the United States within arm’s reach of each other and made Berlin a dangerous place on the world stage, a point where disagreements could escalate into something much more serious. *The wall was a physical symbol of the politics and lifestyles on either side of it. East Berliners saw it as a daily reminder of their isolation and the opportunities denied them. The GDR was using isolation and propaganda to mislead people into believing that Communism would give them a better life, and the wall kept them from seeing options available in West Berlin. Positive Political Impacts of the Wall: * Christopher Hilton, in his book, The Wall, says: “We were living in a nuclear age. Bear in mind that Berlin is 130 kilometers behind the Iron Curtain, it had half a million soviet soldiers around it, the whole East German army. Against that there were 12,000 Americans, 4,000 British soldiers and about 3-4,000 French soldiers. The Russians would have certainly have crushed West Berlin. We would then have had to respond to that and we would have had a nuclear escalation that Kennedy dreaded.” (www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/people/highlights/010815_berlinwall.shtml) * A Communist Party official put it this way: “What happens to Berlin, happens to Germany; what happens to Germany, happens to Europe.” Vyacheslav Molotov. ( www.trumanlibrary.org) Analysis: * Both sides seem to agree that the wall kept the Soviet Union and the United States, and their political systems, safely separated, which allowed them to co-exist. * As Berliners watched with disbelief at the Wall’s construction, many believed that the wall was not a great way to fix the problems but it was better that staring a nuclear war. |
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