The Berlin Wall and US-Soviet relations
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- Created on: 18-11-18 12:30
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- The Berlin Wall and US-Soviet relations
- The Impact of the Wall
- Western troops stayed in Berlin after wall was built
- Solved refugee problem
- Number of military alerts in Berlin declined. Kennedy said a wall was better than a war.
- Seemed to suggest Soviets were not interested in unifying Berlin under communist rule (as Khrushchev demanded in Nov 1958)
- Humiliation for USSR, propaganda victory for West (E. Germans preferred living in W. Germany and had to be forced to stay.
- W. Berlin was a symbol of freedom (highlighted further by over 200 people being killed trying to cross the wall)
- Khrushchev mistakenly thought Kennedy had shown weakness by allowing wall to be built, encouraged him to think about deploying missiles to Cuba
- Notorious barrier between the freedoms enjoyed in the west and those denied in the east
- Kennedy's visit to West Berlin (1963)
- Kennedy famously visited Berlin in 1963 and claimed 'Ich bin ein Berliner' ('I am a Berliner')
- Speech was an expression of solidarity with people of W. Berlin.
- The fact that Kennedy chose to visit W. Berlin personally and give his speech showed the US and NATO were prepared to defend W. Berlin from communist attack
- Kennedy was speaking after the Cuban Missile Crisis adn was showing that he was not 'soft on communism'
- The Iron Curtain divides East and West
- Construction of the wall was he last remaining gap in the Ion Curtain, Europe was not completely divided
- On either side of the Iron Curtain
- Two Germanys
- Two different ideologies
- Two difference alliances (NATO and the Warsaw Pact)
- The Impact of the Wall
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