The Berlin Wall
Nothing symbolized communist totalitarianism more than the Berlin Wall. After World War II, the city of Berlin was divided into four separate sectors. The American, British, and French on one side and the Soviet sector on the other. Like Berlin, Germany itself was divided into East and West. This arrangement created a problem for the Soviets. Berliners craving freedom left the Soviet sector for the Western sectors of the city.
In 1961, the Soviet solution was to build a wall to prevent people from leaving Communist rule. Family members became separated, and those left in East Berlin were forced to live under an ideology that deprived them of their freedom, property, and dignity. To keep them in line, the East German government had the always present Stasi, or East German secret police, watching their every move.
United States President John F. Kennedy visited West Berlin under these circumstances in 1963. His visit was met with a large and enthusiastic crowd as Berliners became aware of the United States’ commitment to their freedom.
Below are parts of the speech known in history as the “Ich bin ein Berliner” (I am a Berliner) speech:
There are many people in the world who really don’t understand, or say they don’t, what is the great issue between the free world and the Communist world. Let them come to Berlin. There are some who say that Communism is the wave of the future. Let them come to Berlin…
Freedom has many difficulties and democracy is not perfect, but we have never had to put up a wall to keep our people in, to prevent them from leaving us…[The Berlin Wall is] an offense not only against history but an offense against humanity, separating families, dividing husbands and wives and brothers and sisters, and dividing a people who wish to be joined together…
Freedom is indivisible, and when one man is enslaved, all are not free. When all are free, then we can look forward to that day when this city will be joined as one and this country and this great Continent of Europe in a peaceful and hopeful globe. When that day finally comes, as it will, the people of West Berlin can take sober satisfaction in the fact that they were in the front lines for almost two decades.
All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin, and, therefore as a free man, I take pride in the words “Ich bin ein Berliner.”
President John F. Kennedy in West Berlin, June 26, 1963.
Kennedy’s speech further defined the Cold War not so much as a military struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union but rather as one between an ideology that supported freedom and one that suppressed it. This struggle continued.
Twenty-four years after Kennedy’s speech, another United States president, Ronald Reagan, delivered a speech before the Berlin Wall. Reagan discussed the great divide between the prosperity of free people and the oppression of the Communist world. His message was aimed at Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and addressed the evils of the Berlin Wall and communism.
Below are parts of the speech known in history for its line, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”:
Behind me stands a wall that encircles the free sectors of this city, part of a vast system of barriers that divides the entire continent of Europe…Standing before the Brandenburg Gate, every man is a German, separated from his fellow men. Every man is a Berliner, forced to look upon a scar…
[I]n the West today, we see a free world that has achieved a level of prosperity and well-being unprecedented in all human history. In the Communist world, we see failure, technological backwardness, declining standards of health…[T]here stands before the entire world one great and inescapable conclusion: Freedom leads to prosperity. Freedom replaces the ancient hatreds among the nations with comity and peace. Freedom is the victor…
General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!
President Ronald Reagan in West Berlin, June 12, 1987.
Less than three years after Reagan’s speech, the Berlin Wall came down, the Soviet Union broke apart, and millions around the globe were freed from tyranny. Freedom achieved one of its greatest victories.
Germans celebrate on top of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989.