ade in 1949, the British, French, and American occu-
pation zones in Germany were merged to create the
Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) on
May 12, 1949, and the Soviet zone became the Ger-
man Democratic Republic (East Germany) on Octo-
ber 7, 1949. Many citizens of East Berlin and East
Germany migrated to West Germany in search of
greater freedom and economic opportunity.
The loss of hundreds of thousands of skilled work-
ers to the West during the 1950’s and early 1960’s
caused the Soviet Union and East Germany to seal off
the border between East and West Berlin on August
12, 1961, and workers began stringing barbed wire
along the border on the East German side. As East
Berliners realized what was happening, many es-
caped through or over the wire, including East Ger-
man border guards. In the following days, concrete
blocks and barriers began to replace the barbed wire.
When completed, the Berlin Wall ran through streets
and along canals and even apartment buildings, com-
prising sixty-six miles of twelve-foot-high concrete
wall and forty-one miles of wire fencing. On June 24,
1963, 1 million West Berliners lis-
tened as President John F. Ken-
nedy made his famous “Ich bin ein
Berliner” (intended to mean “I am
a citizen of Berlin”) speech.Reagan’s Visits During the Ber-
lin Wall’s existence from August
13, 1961, to November 9, 1989, it is
estimated that about two hundred
people were killed attempting to
cross over or under the wall, with
another two hundred injured,
while about five thousand success-
fully escaped. By the early 1980’s,
political conservatives President
Ronald Reagan and Chancellor
Helmut Kohl were in power in the
United States and West Germany,
respectively. In June, 1982, Rea-
gan visited Germany and received
a tour of the Berlin Wall, which
he pronounced to be “ugly.” In
1985, Mikhail Gorbachev became
the leader of the Soviet Union. His
reform policies of glasnost (open-
ness) and perestroika (restructur-
ing) initiated a series of changes
in the Soviet Union and throughout Eastern Eu-
rope.
On June 12, 1987, Reagan, accompanied by his
wife Nancy, Chancellor Kohl, and other dignitaries
made a speech at the Brandenburg Gate, part of the
Berlin Wall. Angered that his speech would not be
heard by East Berliners because East German au-
thorities had moved people out of earshot of loud-
speakers set up to broadcast the speech toward East
Berlin, Reagan, his voice rising with emotion, de-
manded: “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” Sev-
eral months later, on November 4, 1987, in a tele-
vised speech, Reagan speculated how wonderful it
would be if he and Gorbachev could take down the
“first bricks” of the wall.The Wall Comes Down In January, 1989, East Ger-
man leader Erich Honecker stated that the Berlin
Wall might exist for another fifty or one hundred
years; in less than a year, his prophecy was proved
wrong. As reform movements emerged in Eastern
Europe in 1989, Honecker attempted to remainThe Eighties in America Berlin Wall 107
President Ronald Reagan speaks at the Brandenburg Gate in June, 1987, demanding
that the Berlin Wall be torn down.(Ronald Reagan Presidential Library)