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How Did The Communists Build The Berlin Wall

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Eastern Germany had lots of motivation and valid reasons behind the construction of the Berlin Wall. The communists did not want to build a wall around East Berlin; they were almost forced to, or else they face really bad consequences. Ever since the division of Berlin, there were rising tensions. In 1949, West Germany had an economic miracle, which West Berlin was involved in. East Berlin was not, and on June 17, 1953, there were spontaneous strikes in East Berlin, where Soviet tanks had to stop them, which resulted in 360 protesters dead and over 5,000 arrested (¨Berlin (Germany)¨). Events like this were not very uncommon, so if conflict was to start anywhere, it would start in Berlin. The start of the Cold War made many fear of a World War III, and gave them …show more content…

Intervention was clearly needed to stop this problem for East Germany. With a lowering population and the start of a fight that seemed unstoppable, East Germany needed a quick solution. The entire world was still rebuilding after World War II, especially Germany, so a fight in Berlin had to be stopped, even with high tensions. World War III would almost definitely be a nuclear war, which would be much more devastating than even World War II. Kennedy hoped Europe would help in the defensive part of the Berlin crisis. This would show that many world powers are willing to fight communism, and hopefully the spread of communism would slow down. However, Europe did not help much, so the anti-communist message was never sent (Maga 15). Kennedy would have to do this without his allies, making everything more difficult. The Soviet leader Khrushchev agreed to a meeting with Kennedy. Even though neither actually liked the other, they still had to do their jobs and negotiate with the other. The Soviets were complaining of noncommunists in Berlin, and Khrushchev said that the U.S. and S.U. could be peaceful if all of these Western places left

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