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Occupied Berlin
West Berlin ( or , ) was a political enclave which comprised the western part of Berlin from 1948 until 1990, during the Cold War. Although West Berlin lacked any sovereignty and was under military occupation until German reunification in 1990, the territory was claimed by the West Germany, Federal Republic of Germany (FRG or West Germany), despite being entirely surrounded by the East Germany, German Democratic Republic (GDR or East Germany). The legality of this claim was contested by the Soviet Union and other Eastern Bloc countries. However, West Berlin de facto aligned itself politically with the FRG from May 1949 and was thereafter treated as a ''de facto'' city-state of that country. After 1949, it was directly or indirectly represented in the institutions of the FRG, and most of its residents were citizens of the FRG. West Berlin was formally controlled by the Western Allies and entirely surrounded by East Berlin and East Germany. West Berlin had great symbolic signi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Allied-occupied Germany
The entirety of Germany was occupied and administered by the Allies of World War II, from the Berlin Declaration on 5 June 1945 to the establishment of West Germany on 23 May 1949. Unlike occupied Japan, Nazi Germany was stripped of its sovereignty and its government was entirely dissolved. After Germany formally surrendered on Tuesday, 8 May 1945, the four countries representing the Allies (the United States, United Kingdom, Soviet Union, and France) asserted joint authority and sovereignty through the Allied Control Council (ACC). Germany after the war was a devastated country – roughly 80 percent of its infrastructure was in need of repair or reconstruction – which helped the idea that Germany was entering a new phase of history (" zero hour"). At first, Allied-occupied Germany was defined as all territories of Germany before the 1938 Nazi annexation of Austria. The Potsdam Agreement on 2 August 1945 defined the new eastern German border by giving Poland and the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cold War
The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. The term ''Cold war (term), cold war'' is used because there was no direct fighting between the two superpowers, though each supported opposing sides in regional conflicts known as proxy wars. In addition to the struggle for ideological and economic influence and an arms race in both conventional and Nuclear arms race, nuclear weapons, the Cold War was expressed through technological rivalries such as the Space Race, espionage, propaganda campaigns, Economic sanctions, embargoes, and sports diplomacy. After the end of World War II in 1945, during which the US and USSR had been allies, the USSR installed satellite state, satellite governments in its occupied territories in Eastern Europe and N ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
BBC News
BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broadcast news organisation and generates about 120 hours of radio and television output each day, as well as online news coverage. The service has over 5,500 journalists working across its output including in 50 foreign news bureaus where more than 250 foreign correspondents are stationed. Deborah Turness has been the CEO of news and current affairs since September 2022. In 2019, it was reported in an Ofcom report that the BBC spent £136m on news during the period April 2018 to March 2019. BBC News' domestic, global and online news divisions are housed within the largest live newsroom in Europe, in Broadcasting House in central London. Parliamentary coverage is produced and broadcast from studios in London. Through BBC English Regions, th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fall Of The Berlin Wall
The fall of the Berlin Wall (, ) on 9 November in German history, 9 November 1989, during the Peaceful Revolution, marked the beginning of the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the figurative Iron Curtain, as East Berlin transit restrictions were overwhelmed and discarded. Sections of the wall were breached, and planned deconstruction began the following June. It was one of the series of events that started the Revolutions of 1989, fall of communism in Central and Eastern Europe. The fall of the inner German border took place shortly afterward. An end to the Cold War was declared at the Malta Summit in early December, and German reunification took place in October the following year. Background Opening of the Iron Curtain The opening of the Iron Curtain between Austria and Hungary at the Pan-European Picnic on 19 August 1989 set in motion a peaceful chain reaction, at the end of which there was no longer an East Germany and the Eastern Bloc had disintegrated. After the picnic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall (, ) was a guarded concrete Separation barrier, barrier that encircled West Berlin from 1961 to 1989, separating it from East Berlin and the East Germany, German Democratic Republic (GDR; East Germany). Construction of the Berlin Wall was commenced by the government of the GDR on 13 August 1961. It included guard towers placed along large concrete walls, accompanied by a wide area (later known as the "death strip") that contained anti-vehicle trenches, beds of nails and other defenses. The primary intention for the Wall's construction was to prevent East Germany, East German citizens from Emigration from the Eastern Bloc, fleeing to the West. The Eastern Bloc, Soviet Bloc propaganda portrayed the Wall as protecting its population from "Fascist (insult), fascist elements conspiring to prevent the will of the people" from building a Communism, communist state in the GDR. The authorities officially referred to the Berlin Wall as the ''Anti-Fascist Protection Ram ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Crossing The Inner German Border
Crossing the inner German border between East and West Germany remained possible throughout the Cold War; it was never entirely sealed in the fashion of the border between the two Koreas, though there were severe restrictions on the movement of East German citizens.Buchholz, p. 57 The post-war agreements on the governance of Berlin specified that the Western Allies were to have access to the city via defined air, road, rail and river links. This was mostly respected by the Soviets and East Germans, albeit with periodic interruptions and harassment of travellers. The worst disruption to this was in 1948 during the Berlin Blockade when supplies could only be brought in by air – the famous Berlin Airlift – although Allied military convoys could pass through East Germany ''en route'' to Berlin. The border could be crossed legally only through a limited number of air, road, rail and river routes. Travellers to and from Denmark, Sweden, Poland and Czechoslovakia could als ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Inner German Border
The inner German border ( or ''deutsch–deutsche Grenze''; initially also , zonal boundary) was the frontier between the East Germany, German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany) and the West Germany, Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, West Germany) from 1949 to 1990. ''De jure'' not including the similar but physically separate Berlin Wall, the border was an irregular L-shaped line, long. It ran south from the Baltic Sea and then east to the border of Protection of Czechoslovak borders during the Cold War, Czechoslovakia. It was formally established by the Potsdam Agreement on 1 August 1945 as the boundary between the Allied-occupied Germany, Western and Soviet occupation zones of Germany. On the Eastern side, it was made one of the world's most heavily fortified frontiers, defined by a continuous line of high metal fences and walls, barbed wire, alarms, anti-vehicle ditches, watchtowers, automatic booby traps and minefields. It was patrolled by 50,000 armed GDR borde ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Free World
The "Free World" is a propaganda term, primarily used during the Cold War from 1945 to 1991, to refer to the Western Bloc and aligned countries. It was originally coined in the 1930s and used in the Second World War. The term refers more broadly to all liberal democracies collectively, as opposed to fascist and communist states. It has traditionally primarily been used to refer to the countries allied and aligned with the United States, the European Union, and NATO. The term "leader of the free world" has been used to imply a symbolic and moral leadership, and was mostly used during the Cold War in reference to the president of the United States. History of the concept Origins During World War II, the Allied powers viewed themselves as opposing the oppression and fascism of the Axis powers, thus making them "free". Following the end of World War II, the Cold War conception of the "Free World" included only anti-Soviet states as being "free", particularly democratically e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
East Berlin
East Berlin (; ) was the partially recognised capital city, capital of East Germany (GDR) from 1949 to 1990. From 1945, it was the Allied occupation zones in Germany, Soviet occupation sector of Berlin. The American, British, and French sectors were known as West Berlin. From 13 August 1961 until 9 November 1989, East Berlin was separated from West Berlin by the Berlin Wall. The Western Allied powers did not recognize East Berlin as the GDR's capital, nor the GDR's authority to govern East Berlin. For most of its administrative existence, East Berlin was officially known as Berlin, capital of the GDR () by the GDR government. On 3 October 1990, the day Germany was officially German reunification, reunified, East and West Berlin formally reunited as the city of Berlin. Overview With the London Protocol (1944), London Protocol of 1944 signed on 12 September 1944, the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union decided to divide Nazi Germany, Germany into three occ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Western Allies
Western Allies was a political and geographic grouping among the Allied Powers of the Second World War. It primarily refers to the leading Anglo-American Allied powers, namely the United States and the United Kingdom, although the term has also been used more broadly to encompass lesser Allied powers from the British Commonwealth (in particular, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) as well as France and some other Western European countries. The concept of Western Allies is usually used to denote the major differences between the Western, democratic Allies and the communist, totalitarian Soviet Union. The cooperation between individual Western Allies powers (such as exchange of military intelligence) was much more intensive than that between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union. That cooperation became more significant in later stages of the war (e.g. the Teheran Conference). Nonetheless, the tensions remained high, with Western Allies and Soviet Union considering one another a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
City-state
A city-state is an independent sovereign city which serves as the center of political, economic, and cultural life over its contiguous territory. They have existed in many parts of the world throughout history, including cities such as Rome, Carthage, Athens and Sparta and the Italian city-states during the Middle Ages and Renaissance, such as Florence, Venice, Genoa and Milan. With the rise of nation states worldwide, there remains some disagreement on the number of modern city-states that still exist; Singapore, Monaco and Vatican City are the candidates most commonly discussed. Out of these, Singapore is the largest and most populous, and is generally considered to be the last real city-state left in the world, with full sovereignty, international borders, its own currency, a robust military, and substantial international influence in its own right. ''The Economist'' refers to it as the "world's only fully functioning city-state". Several non-sovereign cities enjoy a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
