Over the following years the barbed wire and mesh barrier that was constructed overnight was gradually replaced with a virtually impregnable ring of reinforced concrete that ran 155km around West Berlin.
US President Ronald Reagan made a speech in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin in which he called on the USSR’s leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, to ‘Tear down this wall!’
The Battle of Berlin ended after German General Helmuth Weidling surrendered to Soviet General Vasily Chuikov.
The right-wing Kapp Putsch attempted to overthrow the Weimar Republic.
SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich called the meeting in the Berlin suburb, in which he outlined the deportation of European Jews to extermination camps in Poland where they would be systematically murdered.
The two German socialists were joint-founders of the Spartacist League and the Communist Party of Germany, and were captured following the Spartacist uprising that began on 4 January.
While the speech effectively recognised East Berlin as part of the Soviet Bloc, it also reaffirmed America’s commitment to defend West Berlin against Communist expansion.
West Germany’s Federal Archives revealed that forensic tests proved the Hitler Diaries were forgeries.
Although the border remained closed for around three hours, by 11pm the Berlin Wall checkpoint at Bornholmer Strasse had been opened.
Beginning at midnight on the 13th August 1961, East German police and army began to close the border with West Berlin.
28th June 2015
11th November 2022
11th November 2022
9th November 2019
