Between 1961 and 1990 West Berlin was encircled by a wall which cut the Western part of the city off from East Germany and East Berlin. The wall closed the loophole which had previously existed in the closed border between East and West Berlin. During the 1950s one sixth of the population of East Germany had chosen to leave the ‘workers’ paradise’ established by the Communist government through Berlin, crossing from one side of the city to the other by subway or train and then travelling on into West Germany to start new lives.
Once built, the Berlin Wall became a potent symbol of the ‘iron curtain’ described by Winston Churchill in 1946. Politicians in the West from Kennedy to Thatcher visited and demanded that the wall be demolished.
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