San Antonio College Library

Discusses the building of the wall between East and West Berlin in 1961, examines the reasons the wall was built and the consequences of that action.

The forerunner of the wall-the blockade of Berlin-was imposed by the Soviets in response to the introduction of a new currency in West Germany; and the fall of the wall, ultimately, was due to the pressure of that currency and what it could buy. This program covers the Airlift of 1949, the sealing off of crossing points in East Berlin in 1961, and the construction of the wall proper in 1962. The program covers the history of the wall: its erection,...

"The Berlin Wall (German: Berliner Mauer) was a barrier constructed by the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany) starting on 13 August 1961, that completely cut off (by land) West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin. The barrier included guard towers placed along large concrete walls, which circumscribed a wide area (later known as the "death strip") that contained anti-vehicle trenches, "fakir beds" and other defenses....

"Overnight, it became a powerful symbol of the stark and bitter divisions of the Cold War. The Berlin Wall was more than a symbol, however. For nearly thirty years, it separated families, kept millions of people in virtual slavery, and took the lives of many whose unquenchable thirst for freedom drove them to climb over, tunnel under, or sneak past the wall." "In The Fall of the Berlin Wall, author and conservative pioneer William F. Buckley Jr. explains...

One morning in 1961, the residents of East Berlin found themselves cut off from family, friends and jobs in the West by a tangle of barbed wire that ruthlessly cut a city of four million in two. Within days the barbed wire became a 103-mile-long wall guarded by three hundred watchtowers. A physical manifestation of the Cold War that would stand for nearly thirty years, the Berlin Wall was the fault line between East and West on which rested the fate...

Kennedy and the Berlin Wall will tell the full story of the Berlin Crisis that riveted international attention and brought the world to the brink of nuclear warfare as Soviet and American tanks opposed each other on the streets of Berlin. Drawing on the author's own experience as an American diplomat in Germany during the period, as well as on recently opened Soviet, East German, and American archives, Smyser tells the story of how the fate of a city...

"In his thousand-day presidency, John F. Kennedy led America through one of its most difficult and potentially explosive eras. With the Cold War at its height and the threat of communist advances in Europe and the Third World, Kennedy had the unenviable task of sustaining political support at home without leading the western world into a nuclear catastrophe." "In Kennedy's Wars, noted historian Lawrence Freedman draws on the best of Cold War scholarship...