The cold war was a state of political rivalry between the USA and USSR which stretched from the end 2nd world war to early 90’s. While the conflict primarily played out on a global scale, one city became a major symbol and battleground during this time: Berlin.

The Division of Berlin

After World War II, Germany was divided into four occupation zones, each controlled by one of the allied powers: the powers, that is, the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain, and France. Berlin, despite lying well up inside the Soviet zone, was also divided into four sectors solely within East Germany.

The partition of Berlin in to East and west represents the increasing split between the west’s democracy, in particular America, and east’s communism. It turned into a miniature of the Cold War issue on a global scale.

The Berlin Blockade

They emerged in 1948 when the Soviet Union surrounded and closed all the routes of West Berlin by land, rail, sea and air. This was done, with the intention of making the western friendly powers to relinquish power over West Berlin to the Soviet friendly East Germany.

In an effort to overcome this blockade, the western allies launched what we know as the Berlin Airlift. Ample supply was airdropped to West Berlin for nearly a year and it remained alive and exemplifying the determination of the west to resist Soviet aggression.

The Berlin Wall

The East Germans too were not willing to sit down and watch their comrades cruelled by the soviet regime, as the cold war progressed more and more people was fleeing to West from East through Berlin. However, to locked this trend the East German Government with the backing of the Soviet Union built the Berlin Wall in 1961.

This physical barrier done by Asia Wall split the city into two in a way that East Berlin and West Berlin were different zones. Its main goal was to curb the flow of the East Germans into West and thereby act as a prison for citizens of East Germany.

The construction of the Berlin Wall prolonged the Cold war and acted as a symbol of the divide world during the cold war. It developed into symbolization of Western and eastern blocs and mark the gap between communism and democracy.

The Importance of Berlin

Several key factors made Berlin the center of the Cold War:

Political Significance: There were political reasons for that too as Berlin is the capital city of Germany. Its division and further civil war represented the Cold War conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union in some way.

Geographic Location: Located far into the interior of East Germany, West Berlin was put under severe isolation encircled by the communism regime. Because of the separation and its susceptibility to pressure, it became an area of the focal point of Cold War contention.

Spying and Intelligence: Both the sides relying on Berlin as a main centre for espionage and obtaining informations. Its geographical structure propitious for espionage as it was divided into different zones to facilitate a clandestine work.

Symbolic Importance: Berlin was itself split into East and West, so it became a massive representation of the broader split between East and West. This extend to the point that the symbol of the Berlin Wall symbolized the political divide between communism and democracy.

Checkpoints and Standoff

Several border crossing points were built to control traffic in between East and West Berlin when the cold war was in progress. The best known such place was ‘Checkpoint Charlie,’ which was regarded as being posts that directly confirmed the confrontation between the United States of America and the Soviet Union.

The confrontation between American and Soviet proletariat converged at Checkpoint Charlie in 1961 when tanks of both nations were only a few yards apart. It focused on the high level of stress, and the probability of war between the superpowers.

The Fall of the Berlin Wall

The wall that divided Berlin appeared in the world for nearly three decades and then fell. But a sequence of events that started in 1989 led to the collapse of the axis.

Thus, due to mass protests all over East Germany and economic and political pressure the East German government had to open the borders. On 9 November 1989, that thousands of East Germans flocked into West Berlin, while people of the two sides began to demolish the Wall.

The event of the destruction of the Berlin Wall can be seen as the end of the Cold War, as it divided the East from the West.

Legacy

At the present time Berlin has numerous monuments related to Cold War events. It is now focused in the Berlin Wall Memorial and the Checkpoint Charlie that tells the other side of the story. These features and many others make Cold War history of Berlin interesting and informative for the visitors from all corners of the world.

Conclusion

Berlin lies at the heart of the Cold War because it was a city within the divided Soviet-controlled East Germany. Berlin represented the confrontation of two political systems – socialist and capitalist, and was a site of major confrontations including the Berlin Airlift and the building and dismantling of the Wall. It is possible to gain knowledge about one of the most significant periods of the twentieth century, the Cold War history of Berlin.