The Story of Coalition of Germany

 

A wall can divide not only the countries but people residing in them too. A great example of this is the Berlin wall.

World War II was fought between the Axis countries and the Allied countries. The Axis countries were Germany, Italy and Japan and the Allied countries including the USA, France, the UK and the Soviet Union. There was a war between the two groups and the Axis countries lost the war.

Germany lost World War II and Hitler committed suicide. After Germany lost the war, the Allied countries decided to take Germany under their control.

By dividing it into four parts, East Germany was given to the Soviet Union and West Germany was divided into three different parts. One of each went to the USA, the UK and France. Later, these three parts were reunited and they became West Germany and the part belonging to the Soviet Union was East Germany.

This divide was not only political and geographical but also an ideological divide. The Soviet Union was inspired by the Communist ideology and the Allied countries, America, Britain and France, were inspired by Capitalist ideology.

Capitalist ideology dominated West Germany and Communist ideology dominated East Germany. It wasn't that the Germans themselves were very influenced by these ideologies and the East Germans were communists and the West Germans were capitalists. They were forced into being divided.

By the agreement among the Allied countries. The Germans living in these areas on either part would often meet each other. They would often cross the border to go from the West to the East and from the East to the West.

Soon, permanent migrations also started happening, people were moving from one country to the other permanently and these permanent migrations could be seen from only one of the sides. People from East Germany would go to the West and never the other way around.

Why was it so?

The economies of the Soviet Union and the other communist countries were very centralised. Because of the centralised control, people would no doubt get free education and healthcare which was a good thing, but there weren't many jobs.

There were very few jobs and the unemployment was very high. So, because of the lack of jobs, East Germans migrated into West Germany. The situation was so bad that till 1961, 20% of the population of East Germany had migrated into West Germany. Around 3.5 million people had already moved

So, it was a troubling matter for the government of East Germany. The situation in Berlin was strange. Berlin lies entirely in East Germany but it was the capital. So, in the post-war agreement, it was decided that Berlin would also be divided into two parts.

One of the parts would be East Berlin under the influence of the Soviet Union and the other part would be West Berlin under the influence of the Allies. Allies-controlled area was surrounded by the Soviet-controlled areas from all sides.

East Germany's leader Walter Ulbricht, asked the Soviet Union about what should be done there. When the Soviet Union talked with the US President regarding this, they asked for the entire West Berlin to be given to them and that America should recall its forces and West Berlin, as well as East Berlin, become a part of East Germany.

But obviously, the USA refused to do it. It would've been an embarrassing situation for them. Rumours of a wall to be built along the middle of Berlin started. A wall that would separate East Berlin and West Berlin.

When Ulbricht was asked at a press conference if he intended to build such a wall, he claimed that they had no intentions of building any walls. But like every politician, he too was a liar. In June and July, the famous World Film Festival took place in Berlin where filmmakers around the world come together.

But the government of East Germany had started to secretly build a wall. On 13th August, the world suddenly came to know that they had built a wall to divide East Berlin and West Berlin and because the area of West Germany was entirely in East Germany's part, the Berlin Wall wasn't limited to only one side. The wall surrounded West Berlin along with the checkpoints.

By the 1970s, the East German government had started running simulations on the wall. Such as, if a person tries to climb over the wall in a particular way, or tries to use a particular instrument, or brings a ladder to climb over the wall, the possible scenarios were predicted and then tried to be avoided.

Some people simply tried to climb over the wall at night when the guards may not be able to see. So, the East German government put barbed wires on top of the wall. After that people cut the barbed wires to climb over the wall.

Another way was that the people whose homes were near the wall, some of them would jump from their walls, they’d jump to the other side of the wall from the balconies and windows as well.

But fortunately, the people on the other side, the people of West Germany were helping them cross the border. They wanted to be reunited as well. The windows on the border houses were ordered to be bricked in by the government so that they were no more such windows.

To avoid this situation. Barbed wires were put on their roofs. People came up with creative ideas, for crossing the wall. Some people simply thought to make a tunnel under the wall. As time passed, the government kept on reinforcing the wall to make it stronger.

Barbed wires were put up. More concrete barriers were put in. But people kept on becoming more innovative about ways to cross the wall. In an instance in 1979, two men thought to make their hot-air balloon and to use that hot air balloon rise into the air and cross to the other side.

So, they started making their hot air balloon their first attempt at making the balloon, their balloon rose up and then fell back in East Germany. But fortunately, on their second attempt, they could escape East Germany. So, the government was to think of other solutions to avoid a repeat of the incident.

They introduced a very innovative design of a trap, they would put ropes so that if someone comes with another truck, they would be held back by the ropes. The government gave its full attention, money and energy to improving the design of the wall and preventing people from crossing the wall.

By the 1980s, the economic situation in the countries influenced by the Soviet Union was deplorable and people were fed up with the authoritarian measures in these countries. There was no freedom of speech and there were no proper free and fair elections. So, in countries like Poland, peaceful revolution and civil resistance began.

A Gandhi style movement is called Solidarity. It began in Poland and then the other East European countries like Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Romania, similar movements were seen there too against their governments.

Fortunately, in 1985, the Soviet Union got a new leader, Mikhail Gorbachev. He tried to bring things under control and acknowledged the problems. He started to decentralise the economy and allowed private companies in his country for the very first time.

In 1988, permission to open the first McDonald's in the Soviet Union was given. But till then, the situation had worsened to such levels that wherever Gorbachev went, in the East European countries, people used to chant to ask for help.

Finally, the East German government decided under the pressure of the people to ease down the strict regulations at the border. They wouldn't remain as strict. It was 9th November 1989, Günter Schabowski, his party spokesperson, was given the job to communicate to the media at a press conference that the regulations were being eased down. But the problem was that he wasn't present at the meeting where the regulations were discussed.

He didn't know when the new regulations would come into force. So, when he was asked at the press conference, about when the new regulations would be applied, he said "As I understand it, it goes into effect immediately without delay." And as soon as people heard the news, the East Germans gathered at the Berlin Wall, to go to the other side since the borders were being opened.

Thousands of people gathered at the Berlin Wall. Because of this little miscommunication, the guards present at the border were very confused. They didn't know what they were supposed to do. They called their seniors to ask about what should be done there.

Because thousands of people were getting there. Even the seniors didn't know what should be done. They told the guards to try to stop the people first but the crowd was increasing so rapidly, that the guards manning the Wall gave up accepting that they could no longer handle the crowd and the guards climbed down with a crowd of thousands crossed into the other side of Berlin, breaking the Wall.

And just like that, the citizens tore down the Wall in the middle of their country. 9th November 1989 is considered a historic day. After the fall of the Wall, when the East Germans went into West Germany, they got a big culture shock.

So, the unification of the two countries happened peacefully and gladly. In February 1990, the first free and fair elections were conducted in East Germany and the party that won the election was strongly favouring that both the Germanies should be united.

For this reason, on 3rd October 1990, East Germany and West Germany were finally reunified and once again there was only one country called Germany.