Existing comment:
"It is here in Berlin.... where the news photo and the television screen have imprinted this brutal division of a continent upon the mind of the world."
-- Ronald Reagan, at the Berlin Wall, June 12, 1987
The Berlin Wall:
In 1961, some 3.5 million East Germans -- almost 20 percent of the country's population -- had fled into West Berlin to escape East Germany's communist government. They fled religious persecution, the confiscation of their property, and political oppression. Many reunited with relatives in West Germany.
To end this exodus, the East German army began construction of the Berlin Wall on August 13, 1961. The wall stood for 28 years as the most visible icon of communist aggression. |