Refresh your memory of the Berlin Wall – why it came into being, and why it came down - with this brief historical account in words, pictures and video.

Source: Microsoft^® Encarta^® 96 Encyclopedia. © 1993-1995 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. © Funk & Wagnalls Corporation. All rights reserved.

After World War II (1939-1945) Berlin, badly damaged during the war, was situated within the German Democratic Republic (GDR; also known as East Germany). The city was subsequently partitioned into East Berlin and West Berlin. The divided city not only symbolized the collapse of the German Empire, of which it had been the capital, but also became a focus of Cold War tensions between the Communist nations led by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and the group of Western nations led by the United States. The Berlin Wall, a barrier separating East and West Berlin built by the East Germans in 1961, blocked free access in both directions until November 1989; during the time it stood, more than 100 people died attempting to cross from East to West Berlin. By the time Germany was unified in October 1990, much of the wall had been torn down. A few small segments remain as memorials.

In the 1950s East Germany's relations with capitalist West Germany became strained after West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer claimed that all Germans were one nation and insisted on dealing with the Socialist Unity party rather than with the East German government. Relations became even more strained with the division of Berlin into separate zones. Berlin lay deep within East German territory, but had been divided into eastern (Communist) and western (non-Communist) sectors. To stop the flow of dissatisfied East Germans to the West, a situation draining East Germany's trained work force, East German leader Walter Ulbricht set up a police-guarded corridor along the country's western frontier, leaving Berlin as the only practical escape route. Ulbricht finally blocked that exit in 1961 by ordering the construction of the Berlin Wall, a heavily fortified cement barrier that cut off East Berlin from West Berlin; in 1968 Ulbricht imposed new restrictions on already limited travel from West Germany to West Berlin.

After 1971, when Ulbricht was succeeded by Erich Honecker as party leader (Honecker was subsequently president of East Germany from 1976 to 1989), no single figure dominated the East German government. Relations with West Germany improved after West German Chancellor Willy Brandt and East German Premier Willi Stoph agreed to ease West German travel restrictions to West Berlin in 1972 and instituted formal diplomatic relations in 1973. New trade, aid, and travel agreements were signed with West Germany in 1984, and in 1987 Honecker became the first East German head of state to pay an official visit to West Germany.

With the rise of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in the USSR in the late 1980s, the Soviet-backed regimes of Eastern Europe began to lose control over their people. East Germany's Communist government fell in 1989, an event which profoundly altered relations between the two Germanys. With the fall of the Berlin Wall and other emigration barriers, more than 200,000 East Germans streamed into West Germany. The West German government not only aided the new immigrants but also allocated a massive infusion of capital to shore up the ailing East German economy. West Germany and East Germany merged their financial systems in July 1990, and in October East Germany was dissolved and all its citizens became citizens of the Federal Republic of Germany. A coalition led by Helmut Kohl scored a decisive victory in all-German elections in December 1990. The newly elected Bundestag, representing both East and West, named Berlin the capital of Germany on June 20, 1991. The transfer of administration from Bonn is expected to be completed by the year 2000, with some government offices and the Bundesrat remaining in Bonn.

While reunification (Die Wende, or "the change") brought together long-separated families and friends, it also brought numerous economic and social problems to Germany, including housing shortages, strikes and demonstrations, unemployment, and increases in crime and right-wing violence against foreigners. Budget deficits caused by unification and worsened by a recession have led to increased taxes, reduced government subsidies and increased privatization, and cuts in social services. While increasing the market for consumer products, reunification has significantly affected the strength and competitiveness of the German economy. A gulf is evident between the two Germanys in standards of living, industrial performance, and infrastructure.

A historic moment occurred in August 1994 as the last Russian troops left Berlin, signaling the conclusion of a complete pullout from eastern Europe by the former Soviet Union. Eight days later, the final 200 Allied troops also left Berlin, marking the first time since World War II that the city had not been host to foreign troops.