The Berlin Crisis: a divided city

The Berlin Crisis: a divided city

1. Refugee problems

   • The east German government was unpopular so many eastern Germans fled to the west
     • West Germany was attractive, as there was more wealth and people had a better quality of life
       • Between 1946 and 1961 2.7 million East German refugees fled to the West of Germany
         • It was made easy because east Germans fled to east Berlin then crossed to the west and escaped into the west of German (easy access to a better quality of life and more jobs)

2. Khrushchev's challenge

   • He had the challenge of finding a solution to stop people fleeing over the the west. He was in a difficult position and needed to act dicisively to solve the propaganda disaster (it proved many people preferred west Berlin to east).
     • He came up with the solution of asking the US to withdraw troops from Berlin within 6 months (the six month ultimatum) and declared the whole of Berlin to be officially owned by East Germany
   • He wanted to humiliate the US by not letting any more people escape to the West of Germany to prove their plan of influencing capitalism had failed