Berlin: Europe’s Flashpoint, 1958-1963

History 337 / February 15, 2012

Khrushchev with Ulbricht at theSED’s Fifth Party Congress, July 1958

The Bundeswehr as

“Europe’s fastest growing

army,” 1960

Khrushchev and Mao in 1959,as the Sino-Soviet split was widening

November 1958: Khrushchev’s Berlin

ultimatum

Foreign ministers’ conference, Geneva, May 1959(four WW II victors at the main table; two German states at side tables)

The “Kitchen Debate”:Nixon and Khrushchev in Moscow, July 1959

Khrushchev welcomed in the United States, September 1959

Waiting for Khrushchev: Eden, Eisenhower,de Gaulle, and Adenauer in Paris, May 1960

Francis Gary Powers and a U-2 spy plane

Khrushchev’s response to the “U-2 incident”

Khrushchev and Kennedy in Vienna, June 1961

Refugees stream into West Berlin,

summer 1961

Ulbricht press conference,

June 15, 1961:“No one intends to build a wall.”

Kennedy TV address,

July 25, 1961

[text of speech]

“Three essentials”:1. Allied occupation rights in Berlin2. Free access to West Berlin3. Freedom for West Berliners

Sealing the border, Aug. 13, 1961:a military operation

The wall… surrounding West Berlin

Freshly erected barriers,

August 1961

Barbed wire at the

Brandenburg Gate

An East German army recruit makes a run for it

The wall at Potsdamer Platz

The wall at the Brandenburg Gate

Vice-President Lyndon Johnson and American commanders on the scene in Berlin

General Lucius Clay (hero of the Airlift)inspects West Berlin police units

Standpoint at Checkpoint Charlie, October 1961

Peter Fechter’s death at the wall,

August 1962

JFK at the Berlin Wall, June 1963(with Chancellor Adenauer and Berlin mayor Willy Brandt)

“Ich bin ein Berliner” (June 26, 1963)