●❰ The Soviet Union established the German Democratic Republic in East Germany, which was Communist-controlled.
●❰ The USA, Canada and ten Western European countries formed the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) to defend each other. The Soviet Union responded by forming a military alliance, called the Warsaw Pact, with countries in Eastern Europe.
●❰ The building of the Berlin Wall, 1961: During the 1950s, West Germany prospered while East Germany was poorer. Thousands of East Germans migrated through East Berlin into West Berlin and West Germany. They wanted a better life with more job prospects and greater freedom. East Germany, supported by the Soviet Union, suddenly built a wall between East and West Berlin in 1961 to stop the migration and the movement of people to the West.
●❰ The building of the wall was a great propaganda coup for the West because it highlighted the freedoms of the West against the lack of freedom in the East. The wall continued to divide Berlin until it was knocked down in 1989 as the Cold War came to an end, and Germany was reunited soon after (see p. 355).
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B E R L I N E a s t W e s t
Berlin Wall
Go onto YouTube and look up Miss Stout’s History Class The Berlin Blockade.
