The Berlin Wall

On August 13, 1961, the totalitarian government of East Germany split Berlin with a concrete wall, and free expression of thought disappeared. From 1961 to 1989, about 130 people were killed trying to escape through this brutal barrier to freedom, and many others were injured. After Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe at the end of World War II, citizens of Eastern Germany faced a national government that limited emigration, movement, and other individual freedoms. By 1956, almost all travel to the West had been restricted, and in 1961 the East-West German border was sealed except for access routes into West Berlin through East German territory. The fortified border separated the two Germanys just as the Berlin Wall cut off West Berlin from East Berlin until November 1989. In the autumn of 1989, hundreds of thousands of East Germans began peaceful marches against the oppressive regime, inspired by the civil rights movement in the United States, chanting "Wir sind das Volk," we are the people, in an implicit reference to the United States Constitution. Ultimately, the Berlin Wall could not withstand the desire for freedom, and on November 9, 1989, the wall fell.

Cincinnati, Ohio · United States