berlin and germany cold war
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ABOUT IT! –EBS NEWS: THE NEWS OF THE DECADE-
The division of Germany and Berlin has for
years now been sweeping the nation with
great controversy. Because of the
countries’s significant influence around
the world and economic military strength,
the USA and Soviet Union are considered
superpowers. The United States and the
Soviet Union emerged from the Second World
War stronger than before they entered it.
They had mobilized their vast resources
for maximum effect: building more weapons
and placing more citizens under arms than
ever before in either country’s history.
They had also expanded their territorial
control and influenced far beyond previous limits. Both the
Soviet Union and the United States practised expansionism* and
established their spheres of
influence until the end of the
Cold War. The countries that the
Western Allies had liberated from
Nazi Germany fell under the
American influence, and the
countries that the Soviet Union
had liberated remained under the
Soviet influence. Both superpowers
responded to their fears with
containment. They attempted to avoid other countries’
expansionism by means other than war. Stalin saw postwar Soviet
expansionism not only as a way to “command the world economy”
(just as he had predicted in 1927), but also for historical and
geographical reasons as mentioned previously in this article. By
1961, Berlin had become the hotbed of Cold War tension!
*Editor’s note: Expansionisn is the attempt to enlarge
territorial and ideological influence beyond a country’s borders
and allies.
Editorial: A comment on the Division of Berlin and Germany
As an American, I for one understand the immense amount of grief
this division caused between the Soviet Union and United States. For
two countries both seeking power within Germany, the tension became
widespread and their ideologies divided the country. This event was
the initial cause of the Cold War, and led up to the major development
of tension between the countries. Either of the superpowers could have
chosen to work together, but their innate desire for control and power
stopped their potential cooperation. Working for their own good and
their inability to look past their power struggles sparked an ongoing
strain between the two superpowers. The borders that separated the
Soviet-Communist countries and Democratic-Capitalist countries became
increasingly important to both Americans and their allies and the
Soviet Union. These borders served to divide people by their
ideological differences, as well as political and economic
differences. In a now divided Germany, where many countries shared an
influence, the importance of the borders increased as tension grew
between the superpowers. Not only did the event of the division cause
significant amounts of stress between two very powerful countries who
could have combined their assets in a positive way, it lead up to an
extremely unnecessary war.
Bibliography Grade 12- The Cold War. (2008). Retrieved April 6, 2010, from the Internet:
http://www.sahistory.org.za/classroom/grade12/1_1_4.htm