Division of the World: Capitalism vs Communism
Overview
Introduction
Following World War II, the world became divided between Communist and Capitalist lines. This ideological division started before the end of World War II and would consume the world. Both the United States and the Soviet Union wanted to grow their political and ideological reach throughout the world. The division between the Capitalist, Communist, and the Non-Aligned states would create conflicts with other aspects of global life, such as decolonization in the period. Allied during World War II, the U.S. and USSR became competitors on the world stage and engaged in the Cold War, so-called because it never boiled over into open war between the two powers but was focused on espionage, political subversion, and proxy wars. The Cold War had a large impact on global politics in the period 1945-1992.
Learning Objectives
- Evaluate the differences between Soviet Communism and United States Capitalism.
- Analyze the impact of the end of World War II on the post-war societies.
- Evaluate the role of United States foreign policy in shaping the post World War II world.
Key Terms / Key Concepts
denazification: an Allied initiative to rid German and Austrian society, culture, press, economy, judiciary, and politics of any remnants of the National Socialist ideology (Nazism) (It was carried out by removing from positions of power and influence those who had been Nazi Party members and disbanding or rendering impotent the organizations associated with Nazism.)
reparations: payments intended to cover damage or injury inflicted during a war
The Polar Post War World
The German Nazi’s were such a threat to the United States and the Soviet Union that both countries came together to fight. In many ways, the fighting of World War II pulled these two countries together, but unfortunately this was not to last. At the Potsdam Conference, FDR and Churchill came together with Stalin to craft a lasting peace. But unforutnately this did not last because these three leaders disliked Hitler. The old statement, the enemy of my enemy is my friend is very important here. With Hitler removed, the United States and the Soviet Union quickly lost their friendly relationship.
After the war these two sides were polar opposites in ideology and society. The Russian Revolution and the United States reaction to the revolution in the 1920s meant that the Soviet Union was very antagonistic to the United States. The United States support of the White Russians, meant that the Soviet Union had very negative feelings towards the United States.
The United States and the Soviet Union were the lone world powers following World War II. Both countries attempted to spread their economic, political, cultural, and social values throughout the world directly after WWII. This would create tensions as both powers saw themselves in direct competition with one another. As the Cold War started taking shape, both powers felt that they alone should be leading the world.
The competition appeared to be leading to outright war. But because of the technological development of the atomic bomb, direct fighting between these two powers was not something that could happen. The fear of atomic warfare meant the entire world was in the balance if there was any conflict between the Soviet Union and the United States. This fear and tension between communism and capitalism meant that conflicts were never directly open between these two powers; instead, the Cold War was mostly fought around the world in states that were decolonizing. This is why this time period is known as a Cold War: there was never active fighting between these two states and instead there was fighting in regions that was never directly between the United States and the Soviet Union.
To understand how the Cold War got started, it is important to understand the end of World War II, specifically the Yalta Treaty. This treaty set in motion much of the antagonism of the post-war period. It is important to also note that the leaders at Yalta had seen the horrors of World War I and how this directly caused World War II. They did not want to have a World War III. These leaders understood that the Treaty of Versailles was at the heart of the problem that caused World War II, and they did not want to make the same mistake again. The three leaders wanted to be active in stopping another crisis but had to establish a way to develop and rebuild Europe. The Yalta Conference is significant to the development of understanding the Cold War conflict.
The Details
The main agreements made during the meeting are as follows:
- All agreed to the priority of the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany. After the war, Germany and Berlin would be split into four occupied zones.
- Stalin agreed that France would have a fourth occupation zone in Germany that would be formed out of the American and British zones.
- Germany would undergo demilitarization and denazification.
- German reparations were partly to be in the form of forced labor to repair damage that Germany had inflicted on its victims.
- Creation of a reparation council located in the Soviet Union.
- The Polish eastern border would follow the Curzon Line, and Poland would receive territorial compensation in the west from Germany.
- Stalin pledged to permit free elections in Poland.
- Citizens of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia were to be handed over to their respective countries, regardless of their consent.
- Roosevelt obtained a commitment by Stalin to participate in the UN.
- Stalin requested that all of the 16 Soviet Socialist Republics would be granted UN membership. This was taken into consideration, but 14 republics were denied.
- Stalin agreed to enter the fight against the Empire of Japan.
- Nazi war criminals were to be found and put on trial.
- A “Committee on Dismemberment of Germany” was to be set up to decide whether Germany would be divided into six nations.
The end result was that Europe was divided between the United States and the Soviet Union with the purposes of rebuilding, which created a new post-war world reality. The significant problem that arose was due to the fact that the United States and England were to rebuild the Western section of Europe, while the Soviet Union was to rebuild the Eastern parts of Europe. Many historians question this tactic that Roosevelt bargained for, because it gave away so much territory to the Soviet Union. Some historians believe this was mean to be a starting point for the negotiations between the United States and the Soviet Union, and that Roosevelt felt he could arrange for a better agreement later. However, Roosevelt was very sick, and he died the next year. Stalin did not want to renegotiate the Yalta Conference, and later conferences the United States and Soviet Union remained in this deadlocked position between the two.
Rival Powers
The United States and the Soviet Union’s distrust of one another was a key proponent for the Cold War. Both political powers thought that the other one was attempting to sabotage or destroy the world. The problem was that as tensions started rising between the two powers, they each took on the position of a rival instead of seeking compromise. And their rivalry would be illustrated through weapons and technology, as well as the European response from each.
Learning Objectives
- Analyze how the United States and the Soviet Union were different politically.
- Evaluate how the United States and Soviet Union used proxies to engage one another.
- Evaluate the role of Europe in the Cold War.
Key Terms / Key Concepts
Checkpoint Charlie: the name given by the Western Allies to the best-known Berlin Wall crossing point between East Berlin and West Berlin during the Cold War
containment: a military strategy to stop the expansion of an enemy; the goal of the United States and its allies to prevent the spread of communism
Declaration of Liberated Europe: a declaration as created by Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Joseph Stalin during the Yalta Conference that allowed the people of Europe “to create democratic institutions of their own choice”
German Democratic Republic: a state in the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War period; from 1949 to 1990, the government of the region of Germany occupied by Soviet forces
German economic miracle: also known as The Miracle on the Rhine, the rapid reconstruction and development of the economies of West Germany and Austria after World War II
Inner German border: the border between the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany) and the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, West Germany) from 1949 to 1990 (This does not include the similar but physically separate Berlin Wall—the border was 866 miles long and ran from the Baltic Sea to Czechoslovakia.)
“iron curtain”: a term indicating the imaginary boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1991
massive retaliation: a military doctrine and nuclear strategy in which a state commits itself to retaliate in much greater force in the event of an attack
North Atlantic Trade Organization (NATO): an intergovernmental military alliance signed on April 4, 1949 and including the five Treaty of Brussels states (Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, and the United Kingdom) plus the United States, Canada, Portugal, Italy, Norway, Denmark, and Iceland
propaganda: information, especially of a biased nature, used to promote a political cause or point of view; the psychological mechanisms of influencing and altering the attitude of a population toward a specific cause, position or political agenda in an effort to form a consensus to a standard set of beliefs
samizdat: a key form of dissident activity across the Soviet bloc in which individuals reproduced censored and underground publications by hand and passed the documents from reader to reader (This grassroots practice to evade official Soviet censorship was fraught with danger, as harsh punishments were meted out to people caught possessing or copying censored materials.)
The European response of each country serves as a microcosm of the relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union. Through an examination of the relationship that both states had in Europe, the specific tensions and move toward escalation becomes clear.
Europe after World War II
The aftermath of World War II was the beginning of an era defined by the decline of the old great powers and the rise of two superpowers: the Soviet Union (USSR) and the United States of America (U.S.), creating a bipolar world. At the end of the war in Europe, millions of people were homeless, economies had collapsed, and much of the continent’s industrial infrastructure had been destroyed. Western Europe and Japan were rebuilt through the American Marshall Plan; whereas, Eastern Europe fell in the Soviet sphere of influence and rejected the plan. Europe became divided into a U.S.-led Western Bloc and a Soviet-led Eastern Bloc.
Occupation and Territory Reallocation
The Allies established occupation administrations in Austria and Germany. The former became a neutral state, non-aligned with any political bloc. The latter was divided into western and eastern occupation zones controlled by the Western Allies and the USSR accordingly. A denazification program in Germany led to the prosecution of Nazi war criminals and the removal of ex-Nazis from power, although this policy eventually moved towards amnesty and reintegration of ex-Nazis into West German society.
Germany lost a quarter of its prewar (1937) territory. Among the eastern territories, Silesia, Neumark, and most of Pomerania were taken over by Poland; East Prussia was divided between Poland and the USSR and 9 million Germans expelled from these provinces; and 3 million Germans from the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia to Germany. By the 1950s, every fifth West German was a refugee from the east. The Soviet Union also took over the Polish provinces east of the Curzon line, from which 2 million Poles were expelled; northeast Romania, parts of eastern Finland, and the three Baltic states were also incorporated into the USSR.
Economic Aftermath
The strength of the economic recovery following the war varied throughout the world, though in general it was quite robust. In Europe, West Germany declined economically during the first years of the Allied occupation but later experienced a remarkable recovery; by the end of the 1950s Germany doubled production from its prewar levels. Italy came out of the war in poor economic condition, but by the 1950s, the Italian economy was marked by stability and high growth. France rebounded quickly and enjoyed rapid economic growth and modernization under the Monnet Plan. The UK, by contrast, was in a state of economic ruin after the war and continued to experience relative economic decline for decades to follow.
The U.S. emerged much richer than any other nation and dominated the world economy; it had a baby boom and by 1950 its gross domestic product per person was much higher than that of any of the other powers.
The UK and US pursued a policy of industrial disarmament in Western Germany in the years 1945 – 1948.
International trade interdependencies thus led to European economic stagnation and delayed the continent’s recovery for several years.
U.S. policy in post-war Germany from April 1945 until July 1947 was to give the Germans no help in rebuilding their nation, save for the minimum required to mitigate starvation. The Allies’ immediate post-war “industrial disarmament” plan for Germany was to destroy Germany’s capability to wage war by complete or partial deindustrialization. The first industrial plan for Germany, signed in 1946, required the destruction of 1,500 manufacturing plants to lower heavy industry output to roughly 50% of its 1938 level. Dismantling of West German industry ended in 1951. By 1950, equipment had been removed from 706 manufacturing plants and steel production capacity had been reduced by 6.7 million tons.
After lobbying by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Generals Lucius D. Clay and George Marshall, the Truman administration accepted that economic recovery in Europe could not go forward without the reconstruction of the German industrial base on which it had previously been dependent. In July 1947, President Truman rescinded on “national security grounds” the directive that ordered the U.S. occupation forces to “take no steps looking toward the economic rehabilitation of Germany.” A new directive recognized that “[a]n orderly, prosperous Europe requires the economic contributions of a stable and productive Germany.”
Recovery began with the mid-1948 currency reform in Western Germany and was sped up by the liberalization of European economic policy that the Marshall Plan (1948 – 1951) both directly and indirectly caused. The post-1948 West German recovery has been called the German economic miracle.
The Long Telegram
In February 1946, George F. Kennan’s “Long Telegram” from Moscow helped articulate the U.S. government’s increasingly hard line against the Soviets and became the basis for the U.S. “containment” strategy toward the Soviet Union for the duration of the Cold War.
Overview
The first phase of the Cold War began in the first two years after the end of the Second World War in 1945. The USSR consolidated its control over the states of the Eastern Bloc, while the United States began a strategy of global containment to challenge Soviet power, extending military and financial aid to the countries of Western Europe. An important moment in the development of America’s initial Cold War strategy was the delivery of the “Long Telegram” sent from Moscow by American diplomat George Kennan in 1946.
Kennan’s “Long Telegram” and the subsequent 1947 article “The Sources of Soviet Conduct” argued that the Soviet regime was inherently expansionist and that its influence had to be “contained” in areas of vital strategic importance to the United States. These texts provided justification for the Truman administration’s new anti-Soviet policy. Kennan played a major role in the development of definitive Cold War programs and institutions, notably the Marshall Plan.
The "Long Telegram"
In Moscow, Kennan felt his opinions were being ignored by Harry S. Truman and policymakers in Washington. Kennan tried repeatedly to persuade policymakers to abandon plans for cooperation with the Soviet government in favor of a sphere of influence policy in Europe to reduce the Soviets’ power there. Kennan believed that a federation needed to be established in western Europe to counter Soviet influence in the region and compete against the Soviet stronghold in eastern Europe.
Kennan served as deputy head of the mission in Moscow until April 1946. Near the end of that term, the Treasury Department requested that the State Department explain recent Soviet behavior, such as its disinclination to endorse the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Kennan responded on February 22, 1946, by sending a 5,500-word telegram (sometimes cited as more than 8,000 words) from Moscow to Secretary of State James Byrnes outlining a new strategy for diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union.
Kennan described dealing with Soviet Communism as “undoubtedly the greatest task our diplomacy has ever faced and probably the greatest it will ever have to face.” In the first two sections, he posited concepts that became the foundation of American Cold War policy:
- The USSR perceived itself at perpetual war with capitalism.
- The USSR viewed left-wing, but non-communist, groups in other countries as an even worse enemy than the capitalist ones.
- The USSR would use controllable Marxists in the capitalist world as allies.
- Soviet aggression was fundamentally not aligned with the views of the Russian people or with economic reality, but rooted in historic Russian nationalism and neurosis.
- The Soviet government’s structure inhibited objective or accurate pictures of internal and external reality.
According to Kennan, the Soviet Union did not see the possibility for long-term peaceful coexistence with the capitalist world; its ever-present aim was to advance the socialist cause. Capitalism was a menace to the ideals of socialism, and capitalists could not be trusted or allowed to influence the Soviet people. Outright conflict was never ca desirable avenue for the propagation of the Soviet cause, but their eyes and ears were always open for the opportunity to take advantage of “diseased tissue” anywhere in the world.
In Section Five, Kennan exposited Soviet weaknesses and proposed U.S. strategy, stating that despite the great challenge, “my conviction that problem is within our power to solve—and that without recourse to any general military conflict.” He argued that the Soviet Union would be sensitive to force, that the Soviets were weak compared to the united Western world, that the Soviets were vulnerable to internal instability, and that Soviet propaganda was primarily negative and destructive.
The solution was to strengthen Western institutions in order to render them invulnerable to the Soviet challenge while awaiting the mellowing of the Soviet regime.
The X Article
Unlike the “Long Telegram,” Kennan’s well-timed article in the July 1947 issue of Foreign Affairs attributed the pseudonym “X,” entitled “The Sources of Soviet Conduct,” did not begin by emphasizing “traditional and instinctive Russian sense of insecurity”; instead, it asserted that Stalin’s policy was shaped by a combination of Marxist and Leninist ideology, which advocated revolution to defeat the capitalist forces in the outside world and Stalin’s determination to use the notion of “capitalist encirclement” to legitimize his regimentation of Soviet society so that he could consolidate his political power. Kennan argued that Stalin would not (and moreover could not) moderate the supposed Soviet determination to overthrow Western governments. Thus,
the main element of any United States policy toward the Soviet Union must be a long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies… Soviet pressure against the free institutions of the Western world is something that can be contained by the adroit and vigilant application of counterforce at a series of constantly shifting geographical and political points, corresponding to the shifts and manoeuvers of Soviet policy, but which cannot be charmed or talked out of existence.
The publication of the “X Article” soon began one of the more intense debates of the Cold War. Walter Lippmann, a leading American commentator on international affairs, strongly criticized the “X Article.” He argued that Kennan’s strategy of containment was “a strategic monstrosity” that could “be implemented only by recruiting, subsidizing and supporting a heterogeneous array of satellites, clients, dependents, and puppets.” Lippmann argued that diplomacy should be the basis of relations with the Soviets; he suggested that the U.S. withdraw its forces from Europe and reunify and demilitarize Germany. Meanwhile, it was revealed informally that “X” was indeed Kennan. This information seemed to give the “X Article” the status of an official document expressing the Truman administration’s new policy toward the USSR. In the years that followed, this implication was proved correct by the actions taken by the U.S. government toward foreign affairs, including entering the Korean War and the Vietnam War.
The Iron Curtain
On March 5, 1946, Winston Churchill gave a speech declaring that an “iron curtain” had descended across Europe, pointing to efforts by the Soviet Union to block itself and its satellite states from open contact with the West.
Overview
The Iron Curtain formed the imaginary boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1991. The term symbolized efforts by the Soviet Union to block itself and its satellite states from open contact with the West and non-Soviet-controlled areas. On the east side of the Iron Curtain were the countries connected to or influenced by the Soviet Union. On either side of the Iron Curtain, states developed their own international economic and military alliances:
- Member countries of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance and the Warsaw Pact, with the Soviet Union as the leading state
- Member countries of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) with the United States as the preeminent power
Physically, the Iron Curtain took the form of border defenses between the countries of Europe in the middle of the continent. The most notable border was marked by the Berlin Wall and its “Checkpoint Charlie,” which served as a symbol of the Curtain as a whole.
Background
The antagonism between the Soviet Union and the West that came to be described as the “iron curtain” had various origins.
The Allied Powers and the Central Powers backed the White movement against the Bolsheviks during the 1918–1920 Russian Civil War, a fact not forgotten by the Soviets.
A series of events during and after World War II exacerbated tensions, including the Soviet-German pact during the first two years of the war leading to subsequent invasions, the perceived delay of an amphibious invasion of German-occupied Europe, the western Allies’ support of the Atlantic Charter, disagreement in wartime conferences over the fate of Eastern Europe, the Soviets’ creation of an Eastern Bloc of Soviet satellite states, western Allies scrapping the Morgenthau Plan to support the rebuilding of German industry, and the Marshall Plan.
In the course of World War II, Stalin determined to acquire a buffer area against Germany, with pro-Soviet states on its border in an Eastern bloc. Stalin’s aims led to strained relations at the Yalta Conference (February 1945) and the subsequent Potsdam Conference (August 1945). People in the West expressed opposition to Soviet domination over the buffer states, leading to growing fear that the Soviets were building an empire that might threaten them and their interests.
Nonetheless, at the Potsdam Conference, the Allies assigned parts of Poland, Finland, Romania, Germany, and the Balkans to Soviet control or influence. In return, Stalin promised the Western Allies he would allow those territories the right to national self-determination. Despite Soviet cooperation during the war, these concessions left many in the West uneasy. In particular, Churchill feared that the United States might return to its prewar isolationism, leaving the exhausted European states unable to resist Soviet demands.
Iron Curtain Speech
Winston Churchill’s “Sinews of Peace” address of March 5, 1946, at Westminster College, used the term “iron curtain” in the context of Soviet-dominated Eastern Europe:
From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an “Iron Curtain” has descended across the continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia; all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject, in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and in some cases increasing measure of control from Moscow.
Churchill mentioned in his speech that regions under the Soviet Union’s control were expanding their leverage and power without any restriction. He asserted that to put a brake on this phenomenon, the commanding force of and strong unity between the UK and the U.S. was necessary.
Much of the Western public still regarded the Soviet Union as a close ally in the context of the recent defeat of Nazi Germany and of Japan. Although not well received at the time, the phrase iron curtain gained popularity as a shorthand reference to the division of Europe as the Cold War strengthened. The Iron Curtain served to keep people in and information out, and people throughout the West eventually came to accept the metaphor.
Stalin took note of Churchill’s speech and responded in Pravda (the official newspaper of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union) soon afterward. He accused Churchill of warmongering and defended Soviet “friendship” with eastern European states as a necessary safeguard against another invasion. He further accused Churchill of hoping to install right-wing governments in eastern Europe to agitate those states against the Soviet Union. Andrei Zhdanov, Stalin’s chief propagandist, used the term against the West in an August 1946 speech:
Hard as bourgeois politicians and writers may strive to conceal the truth of the achievements of the Soviet order and Soviet culture, hard as they may strive to erect an iron curtain to keep the truth about the Soviet Union from penetrating abroad, hard as they may strive to belittle the genuine growth and scope of Soviet culture, all their efforts are foredoomed to failure.
The Building of the Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall was a barrier that divided Germany from 1961 to 1989, which was aimed at preventing East Germans from fleeing to stop economically disastrous migration of workers. It divided Germany from 1961 to 1989 and was constructed by the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany) starting on August 13, 1961. The Wall completely cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin until government officials opened it in November 1989. The barrier included guard towers placed along large concrete walls, which circumscribed a wide area (later known as the “death strip”) that contained anti-vehicle trenches, “fakir beds,” and other defenses. The Eastern Bloc claimed that the Wall was erected to protect its population from fascist elements conspiring to prevent the “will of the people” in building a socialist state in East Germany. In practice, the Wall prevented the massive emigration and defection that had marked East Germany and the communist Eastern Bloc during the post-World War II period.
The Berlin Wall was officially referred to as the “Anti-Fascist Protective Wall” by GDR authorities, implying that the NATO countries and West Germany in particular were considered “fascists” by GDR propaganda. The West Berlin city government sometimes referred to it as the “Wall of Shame”—a term coined by mayor Willy Brandt while condemning the Wall’s restriction on freedom of movement. Along with the separate and much longer Inner German border (IGB), which demarcated the border between East and West Germany, it came to symbolize a physical marker of the “Iron Curtain” that separated Western Europe and the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War.
Before the Wall’s erection, 3.5 million East Germans circumvented Eastern Bloc emigration restrictions and defected from the GDR, many by crossing over the border from East Berlin into West Berlin. From there, they could travel to West Germany and other Western European countries. Between 1961 and 1989, the Wall prevented almost all such emigration. During this period, around 5,000 people attempted to escape over the Wall, with an estimated death toll ranging from 136 to more than 200 in and around Berlin.
Effects of the Berlin Wall
With the closing of the East-West sector boundary in Berlin, the vast majority of East Germans could no longer travel or emigrate to West Germany. Berlin soon went from the easiest place to make an unauthorized crossing between East and West Germany to the most difficult. Many families were split, and East Berliners employed in the West were cut off from their jobs.
West Berlin became an isolated exclave in a hostile land. West Berliners demonstrated against the Wall, led by their Mayor Willy Brandt, who strongly criticized the United States for failing to respond. Allied intelligence agencies had hypothesized about a wall to stop the flood of refugees, but the main candidate for its location was around the perimeter of the city. In 1961, Secretary of State Dean Rusk proclaimed, “The Wall certainly ought not to be a permanent feature of the European landscape. I see no reason why the Soviet Union should think it is… to their advantage in any way to leave there that monument to communist failure.”
United States and UK sources expected the Soviet sector to be sealed off from West Berlin, but were surprised how long they took to do so. They considered the Wall an end to concerns about a GDR/Soviet retaking or capture of the whole of Berlin; the Wall would presumably have been an unnecessary project if such plans were afloat. Thus, they concluded that the possibility of a Soviet military conflict over Berlin had decreased.
The East German government claimed that the Wall was an “anti-fascist protective rampart” intended to dissuade aggression from the West. Another official justification was the activities of Western agents in Eastern Europe. The Eastern German government also claimed that West Berliners were buying state-subsidized goods in East Berlin. East Germans and others greeted such statements with skepticism, as most of the time the border was closed for citizens of East Germany traveling to the West but not for residents of West Berlin travelling East. The construction of the Wall caused considerable hardship to families divided by it. Most people believed that the Wall was mainly a means of preventing the citizens of East Germany from entering or fleeing to West Berlin.
Defection Attempts
During the years of the Wall, around 5,000 people successfully defected to West Berlin. The number of people who died trying to cross the Wall or as a result of the Wall’s existence has been disputed. However, Alexandra Hildebrandt— Director of the Checkpoint Charlie Museum and widow of the Museum’s founder—estimated the death toll to be well above 200.
The East German government issued shooting orders to border guards dealing with defectors, though these are not the same as “shoot to kill” orders. GDR officials denied issuing the latter. In an October 1973 order later discovered by researchers, guards were instructed that people attempting to cross the Wall were criminals and needed to be shot: “Do not hesitate to use your firearm, not even when the border is breached in the company of women and children, which is a tactic the traitors have often used.”
Early successful escapes involved people jumping the initial barbed wire or leaping out of apartment windows along the line. On August 15, 1961, Conrad Schumann was the first East German border guard to escape by jumping the barbed wire to West Berlin. On 22 August 1961, Ida Siekmann was the first casualty at the Berlin Wall: she died after she jumped out of her third floor apartment at 48 Bernauer Strasse. The first person to be shot and killed while trying to cross to West Berlin was Günter Litfin, a 24-year-old tailor. He attempted to swim across the Spree Canal to West Germany on August 24, 1961, the same day that East German police received shoot-to-kill orders to prevent anyone from escaping. Most of these brash attempts at defection ended as the Wall was fortified. East German authorities no longer permitted apartments near the Wall to be occupied, and any building near the Wall had its windows boarded and later bricked up.
Even after the wall was fortified East Germans successfully defected by a variety of methods: digging long tunnels under the Wall, waiting for favorable winds and taking a hot air balloon, sliding along aerial wires, flying ultralights and, in one instance, simply driving a sports car at full speed through the basic initial fortifications. When a metal beam was placed at checkpoints to prevent this kind of defection, up to four people (two in the front seats and possibly two in the boot) drove under the bar in a sports car that had been modified to allow the roof and windscreen to come away when it made contact with the beam. They lay flat and kept driving forward. The East Germans then built zig-zagging roads at checkpoints.
Demolition of the Berlin Wall officially began on June 13, 1990 and was completed in 1992.
Primary Source: John Foster Dulles: Dynamic Peace, 1957
Address by United States Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, before the Associated Press in New York
April 22, 1957
A first requirement is that the door be firmly closed to change by violent aggression.
Of all the tasks of government the most basic is to protect its citizens against violence. Such protection can only be effective if provided by a collective effort. So in every civilized community the members contribute toward the maintenance of a police force as an arm of law and order.
Only the society of nations has failed to apply this rudimentary principle of civilized life.
An effort was made through the United Nations to create an armed force for use by the Security Council to maintain international order. But the Soviet Union vetoed that.
However, the member nations still bad the possibility of cooperating against aggression. For the charter, with foresight, bad proclaimed that all nations had the inherent right of collective self-defense.
The free nations have largely exercised that right. The United States has made collective defense treaties with 42 other nations. And the area of common defense may now be enlarged pursuant to the recent Middle East resolution. .. .
The Soviet rulers understandably prefer that the free nations should be weak and divided, as when the men in the Kremlin stole, one by one, the independence of a dozen nations. So, at each enlargement of the area of collective defense, the Soviet rulers pour out abuse against so-called "militaristic groupings." And as the free nations move to strengthen their common defense, the Soviet rulers emit threats. But we can, I think, be confident that such Soviet assaults will not disintegrate the free world. Collective measures are here to stay. . . .
It is also agreed that the principal deterrent to aggressive war is mobile retaliatory power. This retaliatory power must be vast in terms of its potential. But the extent to which it would be used would, of course, depend on circumstances. The essential is that a would-be aggressor should realize that he cannot make armed aggression a paying proposition...
But we do not believe that the only way to security is through ever-mounting armaments. We consider that controls and reduction of arms are possible, desirable, and, in the last reckoning, indispensable. It is not essential that controls should encompass everything at once. In fact, progress is likely to come by steps carefully measured and carefully taken. Thus far it has not been possible to assure the inspection and other safeguards that would make it prudent for us to reduce our effective power. But we shall continue to seek that goal.
Armaments are nothing that we crave. Their possession is forced on us by the aggressive and devious designs of international communism. Ail arms race is costly, sterile, and dangerous. We shall not cease our striving to bring it to a dependable end.
Any police system is essentially negative. It is designed to repress violence and give a sense of security. But the sense of security is illusory unless, behind its shield, there is growth and development. Military collaboration to sustain peace will collapse unless we also collaborate to spread the blessings of liberty.
Trade, from the earliest days, has been one of the great upbuilders of economic well-being. Therefore, this Government advocates trade policies which promote the interchange of goods to mutual advantage.
Also, the United States, as the most productive and prosperous nation, assists other nations which are at an early stage of self-development. It is sobering to recall that about two-thirds of all the people who resist Communist rule exist in a condition of stagnant poverty. Communism boasts that it could change all that and points to industrial developments wrought in Russia at a cruel, but largely concealed, cost in terms of human slavery and human misery. The question is whether free but undeveloped countries can end stagnation for their people without paying such a dreadful price. Friendly nations expect that those who have abundantly found the blessings of liberty should help those who still await those blessings. . . .
just as our policy concerns itself with economic development, so, too, our policy concerns itself with political change.
During the past decade, there have come into being, within the free world, 19 new nations with 700 million people. In addition, many nations whose sovereignty was incomplete have had that sovereignty fully completed. Within this brief span nearly one-third of the entire human race has had this exciting, and sometimes intoxicating, experience of gaining full independence. . . .
Today, nations born to independence are born into a world one part of which is ruled by despotism and the other part of which stays free by accepting the concept of interdependence. There is no safe middle ground.
International communism is on the prowl to capture those nations whose leaders feel that newly acquired sovereign rights have to be displayed by flouting other independent nations. That kind of sovereignty is suicidal sovereignty. . . .
Communism in practice has proved to be oppressive, reactionary, unimaginative. Its despotism, far from being revolutionary, is as old as history. Those subject to it, in vast majority, hate the system and yearn for a free society.
The question of how the United States should deal with this matter is not easily answered. Our history, however, offers us a guide. The United States came into being when much of the world was ruled by alien despots. That was a fact we hoped to change. We wanted our example to stimulate liberating forces throughout the world and create a climate in which despotism would shrink. In fact, we did just that.
I believe that that early conception can usefully guide us now. .
Let us also make apparent to the Soviet rulers our real purpose. We condemn and oppose their imperialism. We seek the liberation of the captive nations. We seek this, however, not in order to encircle Russia with hostile forces but because peace is in jeopardy and freedom a word of mockery until the divided nations are reunited and the captive nations are set free. . . .
Events of the past year indicate that the pressures of liberty are rising.
Within the Soviet Union there is increasing demand for greater personal security, for greater intellectual freedom, and for greater enjoyment of the fruits of labor.
International communism has become beset with doctrinal difficulties. And the cruel performance of Soviet communism in Hungary led many to desert Communist parties throughout the world.
The satellite countries no longer provide a submissive source of added Soviet strength. Indeed, Soviet strength, both military and economic, has now to be expanded to repress those who openly show their revulsion against Soviet rule.
And the Soviet Government pays a heavy price in terms of moral isolation.
Soviet rulers are supposed to be hardheaded. For how long, we may ask, will they expend their resources in combating historic forces for national unity and freedom which are bound ultimately to prevail? . . .
Surely the stakes justify that effort. As I am briefed on the capacity of modern weapons for destruction, I recognize the impossibility of grasping the full, and indeed awful, significance of the words and figures used. Yet we would be reckless not to recognize that this calamity is a possibility. Indeed history suggests that a conflict as basic as that dividing the world of freedom and the world of international communism ultimately erupts in war.
That suggestion we reject. But to reject in terms of words or of hopes is not enough. We must also exert ourselves to the full to prevent it. To this task, the American people must unswervingly dedicate their hearts and minds throughout the years ahead.
That is not too much to expect. Americans are a people of faith. They have always had a sense of mission and willingness to sacrifice to achieve great goals. Surely, our Nation did not reach a new peak of power and responsibility merely to partake of the greatest, and perhaps the last, of all human disasters.
Source:
from The Department of State Bulletin (May 6, 1957), pp. 715-719
Attributions
Source image provided by Wikimedia Commons:
Kitchen Debate: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitchen_Debate#/media/File:Kitchen_debate.jpg
Chapters adapted from:
https://www.coursehero.com/study-guides/boundless-worldhistory/the-beginning-of-the-cold-war/
https://www.coursehero.com/study-guides/boundless-worldhistory/life-in-the-ussr/
https://www.coursehero.com/study-guides/boundless-worldhistory/containment/
https://www.coursehero.com/study-guides/boundless-worldhistory/competition-between-east-and-west/
https://www.coursehero.com/study-guides/boundless-worldhistory/crisis-points-of-the-cold-war/
https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/mod/1957Dulles-peace1.asp