INTERNAL BACKGROUND AND EXTERNAL FACTORS FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE BERLIN WALL (1953-1961)

Abstract

Against the background of post-war economic difficulties in the German Democratic Republic, the article reveals the growth of socio-political tension in East German society during the so-called Berlin crisis, culminating in the strengthening of the sectoral border in Berlin. The author explains the decision to build the Berlin Wfoll not only by the deep contradictions in the German-German relations, aggravated after the formation of the two German states, but also by the tightening of the cold ideological confrontation between the Vest and the East. Former allies in the anti-Hitler coalition, primarily the United States and the USSR, who divided Europe into zones of influence, sought not only to strengthen their positions in the states controlled by them, but also, using political and diplomatic mechanisms, to create bridgeheads for future battles on the fronts of the Cold War. Because of this, they could not make a compromise decision to stabilize the situation in East Berlin and determine the status of the western part of the city, and the GDR authorities quickly took advantage of the disagreements in the camp of the former allies to radically solve the problem of the flight of East Germans across the sectoral border to the Vest through the construction of a concrete wall around the West Berlin