Quick questions on Berlin Wall 1961: HSC Modern History Cold War Crisis

The open sector boundary in Berlin had been the escape route from the Eastern bloc since 1949. Crossing the inner German border (the Eastern bloc's fortified line) was dangerous and difficult; crossing the Berlin sector boundary required only an S-Bahn ticket.

The November 1958 ultimatum demanded that the Western powers leave Berlin within six months; the city should become a "free city" administered by the UN; failing agreement, the USSR would conclude a separate peace treaty with East Germany and transfer access controls to East German authorities. Eisenhower and Macmillan refused. The deadline passed without action at the Geneva conference of May to August 1959.

Kennedy's televised speech of 25 July 1961 set the American position. The three essentials were: the presence of Western forces in West Berlin; free access to West Berlin; freedom and viability of West Berlin. The implication was that the sector boundary itself was not a red line. Kennedy authorised an additional $3.25 billion for defence and increased American forces in West Berlin.

Walter Ulbricht had been pressing Khrushchev to close the boundary since the spring. At a press conference on 15 June 1961 he said "Niemand hat die Absicht, eine Mauer zu errichten" (no one has the intention to build a wall), the first public mention of the word "wall" in this context, intended as a denial.

The Western Allies did not act. American troops remained in West Berlin. On 19 August Vice President Lyndon Johnson visited West Berlin and delivered an empty solidarity speech. On 23 August Kennedy ordered Major General Lucius Clay's reinforcement of the Berlin garrison: an additional 1,500 troops drove down the autobahn, demonstrating that Western access still held.

The Wall solved the East German demographic crisis. The state stabilised; Ulbricht consolidated power; the standard of living rose under Honecker's "Unity of Economic and Social Policy" (1971). Emigration fell from 207,000 in 1961 to 21,000 in 1962 and minimal levels thereafter.

Hope Harrison's Driving the Soviets Up the Wall (2003), using East German archives, shows that Ulbricht actively manipulated Khrushchev to close the boundary; the initiative was East German as much as Soviet. Frederick Kempe's Berlin 1961 (2011) is critical of Kennedy's accommodation. Frederick Taylor's The Berlin Wall (2006) is the standard narrative history.

Kennedy's three essentials were preserved; the Wall fell within his red lines. He had pragmatically accepted the closure as preferable to war.

The Wall was as much an East German initiative as a Soviet one.

13 August 1961 (barbed wire), 17 August (concrete begins). Not built overnight in stone.