Why did they build the Berlin Wall in the first place? Who built it?
542549
The Berlin Wall, initially constructed in 1961 and dismantled in the weeks following November 9, 1989, was the most prominent part of the GDR border system and was an iconic symbol of the Cold War.\n\nConceived by the East German administration of Walter Ulbricht and approved by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, the wall was a long separation barrier between West Berlin and East Germany, which permanently closed the border between East and West Berlin for a period of 28 years. \n\nIt was built during the post-World War II period of divided Germany, in an effort to stop the drain of labour and economic output associated with the daily migration of huge numbers of professionals and skilled workers between East and West Berlin, and the attendant defections, which had political and economic consequences for the Communist bloc. It effectively decreased emigration from 2.5 million between 1949 and 1962 to 5,000 between 1962 and 1989.\n\nHowever, the creation of the Wall was a propaganda disaster for East Germany and for the communist bloc as a whole. It became a key symbol of what Western powers regarded as Communist tyranny, particularly after the high-profile shootings of would-be defectors. \n\nPolitical liberalization in the late 1980s, associated with the decline of the Soviet Union, led to relaxed border restrictions in East Germany, culminating in mass demonstrations and the fall of the East German government. \n\nWhen a government statement that crossing of the border would be permitted was broadcast on November 9, 1989, masses of East Germans approached and then crossed the wall, and were joined by crowds of West Germans in a celebratory atmosphere. \n\nThe Wall was subsequently destroyed by a euphoric public over a period of several weeks, and its fall was the first step toward German reunification, which was formally concluded on October 3, 1990.
304515
The Great Wall stretches for 4,160 miles across North China. It is the only man-made structure that can be seen from the moon with the naked eye. Its construction started as far back as the Spring and Autumn period (770-476 B.c.) and the Warring States period (475-221 B.C.). Rival feudal kingdoms built walls around their territories to keep out invading nomadic tribes from the north. When Qin Shihuang unified China, he started to link up and extend these walls. Prisoners of war, convicts, soldiers, civilians and farmers provided the labor. Millions died for this cause and many Chinese stories speak of parted lovers and men dying of starvation and disease. Their bodies were buried in the foundations of the wall or used to make up its thickness. The Great Wall crosses loess plateaus, mountains, deserts, rivers and valleys, passing through five provinces and two autonomous regions. It is about 20 feet wide and 26 feet high. Parts of the wall are so broad that 10 soldiers can walk abreast. Materials used were whatever could be found near by-clay, stone, willow branches, reeds and sand. Parts of this wall can still be seen in remote parts of China. What most visitors see of the Wall now was restored in the Ming dynasty, when stone slabs replaced clay bricks. It took 100 years to rebuild and it is said that the amount of material used in the present wall alone is enough to circle the world at the equator five times
241618
Mermaid has the CONDITIONS for the Berlin airlift correct. Here is the story of the actual airlift ...\n\nIn June of 1948, the Soviet Union decided to cut West Berlin off from the rest of the world. It was hoped that the blockade would force the Allies out of West Berlin leaving the city for the Soviet Union.\n\nA day after the blockade started, General Lucious Clay (commander of the American zone in West Berlin) ordered a massive airlift to begin. Food, supplies, fuel, EVERYTHING the citizens and militaries in West Berlin was flown in by military transportation aircraft flown by American, English, French, Australian, Canadian, South African and New Zealander air crews.\n\nThe Soviet Union lifted the blockade in defeat almost a year later in May of 1949, but the airlift continued until September of that year. In all, 278,228 flights were made and 2,326,406 of food, fuel and supplies were delivered to West Berlin.\n\nIt is considered the largest humanitarian airlift in history.
759842
Ummm, the wall is gone. They removed it in 1989.
566654
It was built, as was the rest of the Iron Curtain, to contain the citizens of East Berlin, and to limit contact between East and West.\n\nGenerally, the Communist regime in Soviet Russia and its satellites (Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, etc.) were economically and otherwise so depressed and depressing that people would have left if they had half a chance.   (Many left, via escape, anyway...)   So the wall was necessary to prevent a mass exodus, and to limit the inflow of information about the "greener pastures" outside.
619219
Marshall Plan was a catalyst that stimulated many countries in the Soviet Unions influence to "go west" and choose democracy and capitalism instead of east and accept communism. It showed the economic advantages of it through the aid they received, and worked flawlessly to show up Stalin, and communism, who chose to build a wall instead of trying to improve the part of Germany in their influence, or any other nation. Germany's loans to pay off its war reparations, and by other nations for reconstruction, from US soon became part of the whole foreign policy and American influence ordeal. As now they had ties with US, that allowed it to exert more control over these foreign entities.
32616
While concerned, Britain and France both basically gave Germany what it wanted during the Munich Conference of 1938, believing that the decision would prevent war and stop Germany's expansionist moves.\nIn 1939, Germany invaded Poland and World War II began.
148496
Nothing is fool proof but if it would cut the drug and human smuggling down it would be worth it.  The way to do it is have two walls a mile apart.  In the no man's land set up landmines, you will totally stop all contraband entering this country.\n\nThe Berlin Wall was put up to keep people in, not people out.  The wall on the border would be along the same lines of the Intentions of the Great Wall of China or Hadian's Wall in Great Britan.
92449
A key problem for the Soviets had been the fact that large numbers of people were leaving East Berlin and migrating to the West. This posed a fundamental challenge to Soviet claims that the communist system was superior to the Western capitalist model, particularly given the stark difference between the eastern and western sectors of Berlin. The creation of the Berlin wall put an emphatic stop to the movement of people between East and West Berlin, helping to stabilize a dangerous flashpoint between the USA and the USSR in the process.
647492
The Great Wall of China, also known in China as the Great Wall of 10,000, is an ancient Chinese fortification built from the end of the 14th century until the beginning of the 17th century, during the Ming Dynasty, in order to protect China from raids by the Mongols and Turkic tribes. It was preceded by several walls built since the 3rd century BC against the raids of nomadic tribes coming from areas now in modern day Mongolia and Manchuria.The Wall stretches over a formidable 6,350 km (3,946 miles), from Shanhai Pass on the Bohai Gulf in the east, at the limit between China proper and Manchuria, to Lop Nur in the southeastern portion of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. \n\nThe first major wall was built during the reign of the First Emperor, the main emperor of the short-lived Qin dynasty. This wall was not constructed as a single endeavor, but rather was created by the joining of several regional walls built by the Warring States. It was located much further north than the current Great Wall, and very little remains of it. A defensive wall on the northern border was built and maintained by several dynasties at different times in Chinese history. The Great Wall that can still be seen today was built during the Ming Dynasty, on a much larger scale and with longer lasting materials (solid stone used for the sides and the top of the Wall) than any wall that had been built before. The primary purpose of the wall was not to keep out people, who could scale the wall, but to insure that semi-nomadic people on the outside of the wall could not cross with their horses or return easily with stolen property. \n\n\nThere have been four major walls: \n\n\n208 BC (the Qin Dynasty) \n1st century BC (the Han Dynasty) \n\n1138 - 1198 (the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period) \n\n1368-1620 (from Hongwu Emperor until Wanli Emperor of the Ming Dynasty)\n\nThe Ming Dynasty Great Wall starts on the eastern end at Shanhai Pass, near Qinhuangdao, in Hebei Province, next to Bohai Gulf. Spanning nine provinces and 100 counties, the final 500 kilometers have all but turned to rubble, and today it ends on the western end at the historic site of Jiayu Pass, located in northwest Gansu Province at the limit of the Gobi Desert and the oases of the Silk Road. Jiayu Pass was intended to greet travelers along the Silk Road. Even though The Great Wall ends at Jiayu Pass, there are many watchtowers extending beyond Jiayu Pass along the Silk Road. These towers communicated by smoke to signal invasion. \n\nThe Kokes Manchus crossed the Wall by convincing an important general Wu Sangui to open the gates of Shanhai Pass and allow the Manchus to cross. Legend has it that they took three days for the Manchu armies to pass. After they conquered China, the Wall was of no strategic value as the people whom the Wall was intended to keep out were ruling the country (becoming the Qing Dynasty). \n\nThe government ordered people to work on the wall, and workers were under perpetual danger of being attacked by brigands. Because many people died while building the wall, it has obtained the gruesome title, "longest cemetery on Earth" or "the long graveyard". Their bodies were not entombed in the wall, however. A body buried in the wall would have weakened its structure, so workers were buried nearby instead. \n\nWhile some portions near tourist centers have been preserved and even reconstructed, in most locations the Wall is in disrepair, serving as a playground for some villages and a source of stones to rebuild houses and roads. Sections of the Wall are also prone to graffiti. Parts have been bulldozed because the Wall is in the way of construction projects. \n\nThe materials used are those available near the site of construction. Near Beijing the wall is constructed from quarried limestone blocks. In other locations it may be quarried granite or fired brick. Where such materials are used, two finished walls are erected with earth and rubble fill place
43707
Although Rome and China (the great wall was also a road) are known for their paved roads, the first in Europe was probably Sparta in Greece (founded in about 900 BC).  The Agora or marketplace was paved as were many of the roads in the city leading to it by perhaps 800 BC.
688409
To have a colony there like everyone else in Europe.  That's why the Germans went there, too.
219623
How many of you out there remember this same BS when the Soviets were building the Berlin wall?  Ask the Russians and Germans how much they benefited from building their wall to keep out undesireables.  Oh wait, the Soviet Union is no more and the Germanys are back together and the wall came tumbling down.\n\nGo read some history about the great wall of China.  Why it was built and why it didn't work either.
1004322
Basically, after the war Germany was divided in two, East Germany and West germany \nA Common misconception is that Berlin is on the line between the two \n\nIN FACT it is NOT, Berlin is quite deep into East germany, but the West Germans wanted to have a bit of their capital city, so Berlin was divided in 2 and West Germans going to Berlin would have to cross the border far from Berlin and then drive to Berlin from there.\n\nThe East Germans couldn't go round the Berlin and behind the wall because there was a wall all the way round it to prevent this,
404951
put up a huge brick wall like the Berlin wall was.
494916
The primary reason for objecting to the wall is because the wall is being constructed on land that Israel has accepted as belonging to the Palestinian Authority. In essence, by building the wall outside of recognized Israeli territory, Israel is de facto seizing the additional land inside the confines of the wall. The legitimacy of objection would be minimized if the wall were instead to be built on land recognized as within the confines of Israel.
440024
The Chinese Wall.\n\nIf this is the best answer, please vote it the best answer. Thanks!