7. Cold War
7.3 East and West Berlin
Lesson description
After World War Two, Berlin became a hotspot of tension between the US and USSR. Then, in 1961, the Soviet powers began to build what became the Berlin Wall – 100 miles of reinforced concrete dividing East Berlin from West Berlin. What must life have been like for residents?
This lesson contains:
- An introduction to the reasons why the Berlin Wall was first built in 1961 and continued to stand until the collapse of the USSR in 1989.
- An exploration of how lives differed between the residents of East Berlin and West Berlin, including real-life escape attempts from the east to the west.
- The vocabulary and terminology necessary to study the history of the Berlin Wall and Cold War Germany with confidence.