August 13, 1961

On this day in history in 1961 Berlin was divided.

Dividing Up Germany

After WWII ended the world's great powers who had won the war had to decide what was to be done with the country who had served as an aggressor for most it. The United States, Britain, France, and the Soviet Union decided Germany could not be trusted to rule itself without "supervision" and the country was divided into four zones of occupation. Each country took control of a different portion of Germany to oversee.

The division of East and West Berlin, post WWII.

Although Berlin was in the Soviet Union quadrant the other three country's did not think it was fair that they have sole control of the country's capital. Therefore, on August 13, 1961 they split the city into two. East Berlin remained under Soviet control while West Berlin was controlled by the democratic west (America, France, Britain).

A City of Separation

Overnight the Berlin Wall cut off East Berlin from West Berlin

Over the next decade eastern Berlin was brought tightly under Soviet control and cutoff from its western counterpart. Nearly 3 million East Germany citizens moved to the west in search of better opportunities. To counteract this the Soviets sealed off access between East and West Berlin with a 100 mile barbed wire fence that became the Berlin Wall. Overnight, one side was cut off from the other. Some people even had families on the other side, geographically just blocks away, they could no longer see. It wasn't until the late 1980s that the Berlin Wall was finally torn down and East and West Berlin became one city again.