The Berlin wall was a guarded concrete barrier that divided Berlin phisically so as much as idelogically. The wall cut off West Berlin, which was the capitalist side of Berlin and in the context of the Cold War in favour of U.S. international politics. The construction was in hands of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) that had in the East Berlin it´s facto capitol. This side was the communist one and was supported by the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
With the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe after the end of World War II the people who lived in those areas aspired to indepence and wanted the Soviets to leave. In the area of GDR taking advantage of the zonal borders with the West side many citizens fled from there. In order to stopped this the GDR authorities met with the Soviet leaderJoseph Stalin in Moscow and came up with the idea of having a better demarcation of the inner borders of Germany with the construction of a barbed-wire fence, however this the borders of Berlin were the only one to remain opened so it became a magnet from the East citizens who wanted to escape from the communist regime.
The emigrants tended to be young well educated leading to a brain drain that was feared by the East German officials. By the year 1960 the massive emigration along with the losses of the World War II had left the Soviets with 60% of population in working age so in the next year the GDR began the construction of the wall to avoid it´s citizens to fled to the West side.
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