A
As a result of World War II, East and West Germany were established as separate states in 1949 -- but there was a steady outflow of eastern citizens who thought that they could find a better life in West Germany. As a result of the forced collectivization of eastern agriculture, as well as other factors, this outflow increased very sharply toward the end of the 1950s. Finally, in order to stop the wave of departures, the East German government (with the acquiescence of the Soviet Union) constructed the Berlin Wall in August 1961 and, at the same time, it fortified the entire East-West German border.
The Wall and the border regime basically halted the departure of East German citizens. A few people were occasionally able to slip through to the west, but hundreds of (mostly young) East German citizens were killed when they attempted to escape across the border.
In the late 1980s, various economic and other problems in the Soviet Union and its “satellite” states led to increased pressure on the Wall and the border regime. In the summer of 1989, for example, hundreds of East German citizens were able to flee over the Hungarian border to Austria, and others took refuge in the West German Embassy in Prague and were transported to the west.
Finally, on the night of November 9, 1989 the Berlin Wall was opened by East German border officials (perhaps as the result of a mistaken communication) and thousands of East Berliners spent a night of celebration in West Berlin. Thereafter the Wall was permanently opened (and eventually dismantled), and the unification of Germany, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, followed in succeeding years.
On November 9, 2009, therefore, we celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the opening of the Berlin Wall, which led to seismic changes in the political structure of Europe and the world.
The German Unification Collection of the Thurgood Marshall Law Library focuses on the complex legal and constitutional issues of that era: the period leading up to German unification, the events of unification itself, and the complex and sometimes bitter aftermath of that epochal historical event.
Comments