The failure in the success of the Berlin Wall

Introduction

It is hard to pinpoint the exact date when the Cold War began, as it was a gradual transition from wartime allies to peacetime opponents. Yet, the tensions and troubles on the horizon were clear from the get-go, maybe most picturesquely described by Sir Winston Churchill. In March 1946 he described a division of Europe by saying “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent”. Nevertheless, such a gloomy depiction of the Cold War affairs remained nothing more than a metaphor until August of 1961 and the construction of the Berlin Wall, which became its most symbolic representation.

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The Warsaw Pact - An Unwilling Alliance

Introduction

What appears to be the end, always turns into a beginning. When World War Two ended in 1945, people truly believed the world had learned its lessons. The all-consuming war exhausted the material and human resources of the belligerent countries. The European continent was left ruined from Moscow to London. Hardly anyone would believe at that moment that only 10 years later the continent would slide into yet another partition. This time it was Democracy against Communism, West versus East. Countries in the West were standing under the umbrella of the NATO pact. Opposed to them were countries of the Warsaw Pact.

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