Residents of Berlin awoke on August 13,1961 to find the communist government of East Germany erecting what would become a 96-mile wall around the “western quarters” of the city — not so much to lay siege to the westerners (that had been tried in 1948, frustrated by the Berlin Airlift) as to keep easterners from “defecting” to the West. The Brandenburg Gate was closed on August 14, and all crossing points were closed on August 26.From 1961 through 1991, teachers could use the Berlin wall as a simple and clear symbol for the differences between the communist Eastern Bloc, the Soviet Union and her satellite states, and the free West, which included most of the land mass of Germany, England, France, Italy, the United States and other free-market nations — the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) countries. Many high school kids today know very little about the Wall, why it was there, and what its destruction meant, politically. The Berlin Wall, the totem of the Cold War came down in 1989, pushing the end of the Cold War.
"Many high school kids today know very little about the Wall, why it was there, and what its destruction meant"
ReplyDeleteThanks, Arthur. Many of those same kids (and their parents)seem to know little about what we have as Americans, how we got it, and why it's worth protecting. They may have been taught too much about Ché and too little about George Washington in school.