It is impossible to discuss great events of history and not include the construction of the Berlin Wall. It lasted for almost 29 years and divided a city, a nation and the whole world. So why did the East German government build this massive structure in the first place? Let’s dive into the key reasons behind its construction:

1. Preventing Brain Drain

The first and the leading cause of the erection of the Berlin Wall was to slow down the drain of workers, intellectuals, and other professionals from East Germany to West Germany. Before the construction of the wall, East Germany has suffered from mass emigration to the west mainly educated young people. This mass emigration known as the brain drain was dangerous for the East Germans for several reasons first, it reduced their workforce and skilled labors.

2. Being a key to combating political instability

The construction of the Berlin also wanted to stop further political upheavals within East Germany as well. In the years prior to its construction there was increasing dissatisfaction with the general population due to political repression, economic stagnation and lack of civil liberties. The government was concerned that with the 次succession more protests and uprisings could threaten their regime. They wanted to build a wall to discourage these individuals and limit them so that political problems wouldn’t be passed around.

3. Ideological Battle

During the Cold War, East Germany and West Germany represented two opposing ideologies: communism and democracy. The Berlin’s Wall became the emblem of such division. It depicted the biggest difference; the eastern Germany which was so strict and the west Germany part which was so free. Thus, the government of the GDR acted to separate the people and enemy images in the hope of filtering out any influences from the west which might be tending towards bourgeois capitalist freedoms while demonstrating anew and more convincingly its confident adherence to socialist policies.

4. Economic Stability

The East German power was set on pushing the socialist view of the economy. They thought that by erecting a wall separating East from West Germany, they could shield their own society from contamination of western style materialism. The construction of the Berlin Wall helped them to establish an environment in which they could form their own industries and bolster their economy to be ten times that of the neighbors without interference from the outside world. It also stopped migration of quality human resource, capital, technology and talent to the developed western world.

5. Symbolic Power

For practical purposes, it was built, but at the same time, the symbol of the Berlin Wall then played a significant role in the superpowers’ collision. For the government of East Germany what it did became a symbol of their power to resist the influences of the West. It also signified physical and resolve-aggression particularly against perceived adversaries and agents of change. In contrast the wall represented the East, specifically the division of a city, families, and in fact a nation for the west.

Conclusion

The construction of the Berlin Wall can be defined as a multifaceted process which had diverse reasons. On the one hand, it was an attempt to solve the problems boiling down to brain drain, instabilities in the political and economic realms, and on the other hand, it became a symbol of ideological warfare of the Cold War experience. It was a catalyst to the destruction of the wall in 1989 with aims at the stop of the Cold War and reunification of the two cities. Knowledge of the motives behind its construction helps to take into consideration the fact is the historical fact and its potential consequences.