The Berlin Wall: The Cold War

One of the main causes that had started the cold war was Europe , Britain and the Usa believed that some areas of europe were falling under communist control .Even though the two countries never really declared war on each other they did fight indirectly. The Cold War was a long time of fighting between some of the Western side of the country and the communist countries of Eastern Europe. The west side was led by the United States and the Eastern side was led by the Soviet Union. It started in 1945 and ended in 1989 . The Cold War had started just after World War II had ended in 1945 .

As said by Christopher Bond, “Remember, we all know the end of the story of World War II and the Cold War. But day by day, living in fear of the Nazis and then in fear of the Soviets, the outcome was by no means certain.” Today everyone knows that the Nazis were defeated in 1945 and the Iron Curtain, along with the Soviets, eventually fell around 1991. But in 1939 after Germany invaded Poland, or when the alliance between the Soviet Union and the United States was beginning to fall apart the peace and safety of the United States was not always guaranteed. Both Roosevelt’s “Four Freedoms’ speech and Kennedy’s inaugural address talk about how the peace and freedom of the United States is being threatened. However in Roosevelt’s speech he wanted the people to agree to end the policy of neutrality and help our allies.

The war was referred to as cold because there was never any physical fighting between the two countries. The Cold War essentially began due to political and military clashes between the two countries. After WW2, the United States sought for stronger united Germany and independent nations in Eastern Europe. The United States president

Trapped, alone, hurt, betrayed. That is how the people of West Berlin felt when their communist brethren government, the East Germans, put up a wall around their city. This wall was dubbed the ‘Berlin Wall’. The beginning ideas, repercussions, and the fall of the wall are what make the Berlin Wall so interesting. First, it was obvious to the creators of the wall, the communist East German government, that there was something strange going on when the people of East Berlin would suddenly go missing.

One of Stalin’s main goals for building the blockade was to drive democracy out of the city. But of course that didn’t go as planned. In fact Berlin possibly became even more democratic after the blockade. Soviet authorities finally realized that the allies were determined to stay in Berlin and that the blockade was useless and on May 12, 1949, the blockade was taken down. The airlift continued until September 30, 1949.

What purpose does or did the wall serve? The government of East Germany told to its citizens that the purpose was to protect them from the people from West Germany, but in fact the true purpose was that the Berlin wall kept East Germans from immigrating to West Germany through Berlin. Nowadays the purpose of the wall is to serve as a historical monument of the Cold War and separation of Germany and Berlin. 3.”Who or what” was it walling out or walling in”? The Berlin wall was tearing families apart, and “meant to many people a loss in human rights” -not allowing the freedom of movement .And it was keeping people from moving, staying in East Germany for example, without even wanting or willing to.

Then in 1980, when their family is about to return to Kabul, the Soviet Union initiates an invasion and war in Afghanistan. Although he is not present in his country during the time, he gives an illustration of what his fellow Afghans had suffered. “The shootings and explosions had lasted less than an hour... it was the beginning of the end. The end, the official end, would come first in April 1978 with the communist coup d 'état, and then in December 1979, when Russian tanks would roll into the very same streets where Hassan and I played, bringing the death of the Afghanistan I knew and marking the start of a still ongoing era of bloodletting.” (p.39) Aside from the bombings and killings, Russian soldiers tend to abuse alcohol and drugs, which leads them to become violent and abusive to women. This is evident when Baba and Amir tries to cross to Pakistan and had an encounter with a Russian soldier “…the Russian soldier…wanted a half hour with the lady in the back of the truck.” (p.125) “Baba stood up…The Russian soldier…clicked the safety pin on the gun.

In early 1919 they launched a bid for power, joined with rebel soldiers and sailors, they set up Soviets in several towns. Ebert then made an agreement with the commanders of the army and the Freikorps to shut the rebellion down. The Kapp Putsch was a threat from the right-wing and took place on the 20th of March in 1920 and was lead by Wolfgang Kapp. Kapp lead 5000 Freikorps (anti communist ex-soldiers) into Berlin which was a direct threat to the Weimar government. The army then refused to fire on the Freikorps and it seemed like Ebert’s government was going to fail however the people then went on strike and everything came to a halt.

While Russia was never directly mentioned in the opening scene, the political undertone that these news clips deliver is apparent. The first substantial suggestion of political motivation in the film comes in the scene directly after Jim Craig refuses to take Herb Brook’s psychological test. Assistant coach Craig Patrick and the team doctor are waiting in a long line for gas, which is a direct result of U.S foreign policy during the time. On the radio, a news announcement plays saying the Soviets conducted a nuclear bomb test. The Doc says to Patrick, “it just seems to me that some people will never get along,” referring to the turmoil between the East and the West.

To examine the Cold War consensus, one must discuss the Cold War. The Cold war was the tension between the United States, standing for capitalism, and the USSR, standing for totalitarianism and socialism, following World War II. Although it was not a physical war between the two superpowers, many proxy wars had came out of it as way to spread or combat communism throughout the Free World. The Free World, as the U.S. came to define it, did not necessarily mean free as countries were being ruled by military regimes and dictatorships, but free from communism(70). During the Cold War, the spread of communism frighted the American People.