Berlin Wall Panels
The period after the Second World War divided Western Democratic and Eastern
Communist political ideologies by what was known as the Iron Curtain, which
stretched from the Baltic to the Black Seas. Within East Germany, part of the
Communist sphere of influence, West Berlin was an island of freedom surrounded by
a sea of oppression. In August, 1961, the East German government, to prevent the
flight of its citizens from East to West Berlin, built a wall dividing the City. For 28
years the Berlin Wall was the Rubicon for East and West until "Glasnost" became the
new thinking in the Communist World. Between November 9 and 12, 1989 the Wall
was breached; not from without with bombs or bullets, but from within by the sound
of freedom and the vision of a better life that had drifted over the Wall.
The World must not forget that it was America's
resolve and its political and economic ideals that
made this bloodless revolution and most significant
historical event possible.