The Reaction of the Berlin Wall

Many East Berliners panicked and tried to get to west Berlin. Within just a week one man died from trying to jump over the wall from an upper storey window.

The West Berliners thought that the Soviet Union wanted to start a fight. Khrushchev has already told the American to get out of Berlin or to expect war.

The West Berliners held a huge rally on the 17th of August  callinf on American President John F. Kennedy to keep his troops in Berlin. Kennedy sent an extra 1500 troops in response.

War?

Things got tense on 27th October 1962 when Soviet and American tanks pulled up on their respective sides of the Berlin Wall. Everyone expected shots to be fired any second but none were and the tanks backed down.

A tense statement ensued. As Khrushchev said 'It's not a very nice solution but a wall is a hell of a lot better than war'   

The wall comes tumbling down               

Due to a series of events in 1989, communism in Eastern Europe and the USSR came to an end. One of those events occurred in November when thousands of East Germans marched on the Berlin Wall and started smashing it with slegde hammers.