Construction of the Berlin Wall

• The four summit meetings of 1959 to 1961 had failed to resolve the problem in Berlin, and President Kennedy started to prepare the USA for nuclear war
• When was the Berlin wall built?

  August 1961
• Krushchev could not risk a nuclear war with the USA but also needed to fix the refugee problem, so he built the Berlin wall. Any East Berliner trying to escape to West Berlin would be shot
• The Berlin wall stopped East Germans leaving for the West, which solved the refugee crisis. This way, Khrushchev avoided war with USA but still looked strong, as anyone who tried to escape was shot
• In 1963, Kennedy visited West Berlin and gave a speech celebrating the freedom of West Berlin and criticized communism in East Berlin