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Division of Berlin into 4 sectors
The Allies divided Berlin at the Yalta Conference into four sectors; France controlled the northwestern area, Great Britain the western area, and the US the southwestern part of the city. The entire eastern part of Berlin came under the supervision of the Soviet Union. -
Currency Reform
The currency reform only applied to the three zones occupied by the United States, Britain and France, but not West Berlin. The Currency Reform of June 1948 led directly to the Berlin Blockade. Along with the airlift came the Deutschemark which became the official currency within West Berlin. After June 1948, the economic and political separation of Germany became a reality and continued until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. The currency reform was a success. -
Berlin Blockade
Soviet Union blocked all road and rail travel to and from West Berlin, cutting off the city from outside supplies, which were needed for survival. On June 26, 1948, the first planes took off from bases in England and western Germany and landed in West Berlin. It was to provide food, clothing, water, medicine, and other necessities for the 2 million fearful citizens of the city. For a year, American and British planes landed. 200,000 planes carried two million tons of supplies -
Federal Democratic Republic is founded
West German Parliamentary Council met and declared the establishment of the Federal Republic of Germany. Although Konrad Adenauer, the president of the council and future president of West Germany, proudly proclaimed, “Today a new Germany arises,” the occasion was not a festive one. -
German Democratic Republic is founded
Soviets reacted quickly to the action in West Germany. In October 1949, the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) was officially announced. These actions in 1949 marked the end of any talk of a reunified Germany. For the next 41 years, East and West Germany served as symbols of the divided world, and of the Cold War animosities between the Soviet Union and the United States. -
Beggining of the separation
In 1952, the East German government closed the border with West Germany, but the border between East and West Berlin remained open. East Germans could still escape through the city to the less oppressive and more affluent West. -
Berlin Wall was established
On 15 June, East German leader Walter Ulbricht declared that 'no one has the intention of building a wall', but on the night of 12-13 August a wire barrier was built around West Berlin. Established crossing points between the Western and Soviet sectors were closed, dividing neighbourhoods and separating families overnight. From this barricade, the Wall would develop into a fortified concrete structure encircling West Berlin and isolating it from the surrounding East German territory. -
Hungarian Tore in Iron Curtain
On 27 June 1989, the foreign ministers of Hungary, Gyula Horn, and Austria, Alois Mock, cut through a section of the barbed wire that had divided their countries for decades. This symbolic act marked the beginning of the end for communist governments in central and eastern Europe. -
Demolition Berlin Wall
On the night of November 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall, which divided the German capital for another almost three decades, was brought down.But the Berlin Wall not only divided this city: it divided all of Europe and was the symbol of a bipolar world in which two powers, the United States and the Soviet Union, were the poles of influence.
Its fall made German reunification possible and heralded the demise of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. -
Disolution Soviet Union
In September 1991, the USSR recognized the independence of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The proclamations of independence from other republics followed one another and, together with the economic collapse, Gorbachev lost authority. On December 25, 1991, Gorbachev announced the dissolution of the Soviet Union. -
End Cold War
The Cold War ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms, which liberalized the economy and granted greater political freedoms.Its dissolution, in 1991, led to the predominance of the United States as the only world power.In addition, in the past there were innumerable wars, sponsored by both powers in third countries such as Korea, Vietnam or Afghanistan, which caused thousands of deaths and generated political problems still unresolved.