Berlin Crisis and the Berlin Wall 1959-1961
When exactly was the Berlin Wall built?
13 August 1961
When did Kennedy make his "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech?
1963
Between 1946 and 1961, how many people left East Germany?
2.7 million
How many people defected to West Berlin at its peak?
20,000 people a month.
Until when did the Berlin Wall stay in place?
9 November 1989
One of the effects of the Berlin Wall being built related to escapes.
Desperate escapes to the West by hot air balloons, in car trunks and by digging tunnels.
Who were the types of people that left East Germany?
Doctors, teachers, scientists and engineers.
One of the reasons why the Berlin Wall was built related to East Germans.
East Germans/Berliners defected to West Berlin.
How did the defections reflect on the USSR?
Exceptionally humiliating, could have been used as anti-Communist propaganda.
One of the effects of the Berlin Wall being built related to families.
Families separated
One of the effects of the Berlin Wall being built related to tension.
It ended the superpowers' tension in Berlin because it was afterwards very difficult to escape.
When was defection to West Berlin at its peak?
January 1961
One of the effects of the Berlin Wall being built related to transport.
Only way in/out of West Berlin was by plane. Companies paid workers more to live in West Berlin as a result.
One of the effects of the Berlin Wall being built related to Kennedy.
President Kennedy made his iconic "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech in West Berlin, but the US did not go to war over the Wall.
What was the defection of the highly-educated classes to West Berlin known as?
The 'brain drain'.
One of the effects of the Berlin Wall being built related to the Cold War.
The Wall became a symbol of the Cold War.
What was an example of the brain drain?
The entire mathematics faculty at the University of Leipzig defected to West Berlin in a day.
Why was West Berlin attractive to East Germans?
They could see their better standard of living: nice homes and cars, consumer goods, freedom of speech.
True or false? In Kennedy's "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech, he unintentionally called himself a doughnut, "ein Berliner", in Berlin dialect.
True, but false because German grammar gets funky when talking about belonging to a place/group of people figuratively, so really his speech-writers were correct.
One of the reasons why the Berlin Wall was built related to spying.
West Berlin was a spying headquarters for the West, they could easily spy on and infiltrate the East.
One of the reasons why the Berlin Wall was built related to capitalism.
West Berlin was an advert for capitalism.
