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Marshall Plan
"Without the Marshall Plan Germany would have turned into one giant graveyard, into a vast plain of destruction, brutality, inhumanity, disease and death. [...] Not the USA profited from it, but rather all of Europe - but most of all the German people under the occupation by the Western Allies. In the face of the humanitarian motive, the massive financial and material aid takes on an aspect of nobility." -
Soviet Blockade
“[...]negotiations between the Soviets, Americans, and British broke down.” -
Soviet Blockade
“[...] Soviet forces blocked the roads and railroad lines into West Berlin” -
Berlin Airlift
“[...] the Americans and British used a dramatic airlift to supply the civilian population...” -
Berlin Blockade Ends
“[...]Stalin was forced to call off the attempt [Berlin Blockade].” -
Period: to
Brain Drain
Exodus of educated people from the east to the west Berlin. -
Berlin Wall Erected
"At 2 a.m. on Aug. 13, 1961, a low, barbed-wire barrier was strung between East and West Berlin. It effectively divided the city in half. Within days, workers cemented concrete blocks into a low wall through the city." -
Kennedy Speaks
"President Kennedy gave a historic speech on June 26, 1963, to a crowd in front of the Berlin Wall." -
Period: to
Gorbachev Reforms
“Perestroika means a restructuring or reorganization to reduce the crushing costs of military spending and commitments to its satellite states in Eastern Europe, Gorbachev allowed those states to go their own way.”
"He [Gorbachev] has promoted glasnost, or openness, as a means of permitting a free exchange of ideas on topics that hitherto were subjects to political restriction.” -
Reagan Speaks
"Arriving in Berlin on June 12, 1987, President and Mrs. Reagan were taken to the Reichstag, where they viewed the wall from a balcony." -
Fall of Wall
"I don’t think anyone could avoid feeling the elation at the Berlin Wall coming down. I mean, that is just such a classic moment. It was important not just because it meant the end of the communist regime in Eastern Germany but it signaled the end of the division of Europe. There was the tangible material symbol of a divided continent being pushed down by people on both sides." -
Zhivkov Removed
"On November 10, 1989, several hours after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party holds a meeting in which Zhivkov is forced to resign as party head and head of state." -
Czechoslovakians Revolt
"A Czechoslovakian student protest leads to clashes with police, beginning the country’s 'Velvet Revolution'. Half a million people protest in Prague on 20 November." -
Czechoslovak Communists Rule Ends
On this day, the Czechoslovak Communist Party relinquished their power, ending their regime in Czechoslovakia. -
Bulgaria Democracy
"On December 11, 1989, the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party adopts a course in favor of parliamentary democracy, and proposes the abolition of Article 1 of the 1971 Constitution (known also as “Zhivkov’s Constitution”) which stipulates the “leading role” and monopoly of the BCP on political power in Bulgaria." -
Romainia Revolts
"Of all the rebellions that toppled Communism in Eastern Europe a decade ago, the bloodiest began in this provincial city where a protest by the parishioners of an obscure Calvinist pastor somehow exploded into the nationwide revolt that in nine days shoved Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu, Romania's megalomaniacal ruling couple, in front of a firing squad."