Berlin Wall

• What was the brain drain?


  All the skilled people (e.g teachers, doctors, engineers) were leaving East Germany to go to West Germany as they had better living standards and opportunities
• What was West Germany like?

  • Better living standards
  • Better pay
  • Wealthy
  • Prosperous
• What was East Germany like?

  • Poor living standards
  • Lacked basic goods and food
  • Communism was unpopular amongst the people
• What was the Berlin Ultimatum?

  Khrushchev demanded that the West should leave Berlin by demilitarising within six months or he would hand over control of all routes to the East German government
• Why was the Berlin Ultimatum a problem for the West?

  They refused to acknowledge the East German government
• What happened as a result of the Berlin Ultimatum?

  Both sides were forced into a series of talks as they both had nuclear weapons and they wanted avoid nuclear warfare
• What happened at the Geneva summit of 1959?

  Ideas were put forward on what to do with Germany from both sides
• What happened at the Camp David summit of 1959?

  The Soviets agreed to withdraw the Berlin Ultimatum but there was no agreement as to what should happen
• What happened at the Paris summit of 1960?


  An American U2 spy plane had been shot down over the USSR which Eisenhower refused to apologise for and so Khrushchev stormed out of the meeting
• What happened at the Vienna summit of 1961?

  The meeting failed as Khrushchev had reintroduced the ultimatum and Kennedy had responded by increasing spending on the military
• When did Khrushchev close the border between East and West Germany?

  12th August 1961
• What did the creation of the border between East and West Germany mean?

  That all discussions had ended
• What happened to those tried to cross the border between East and West Germany to escape East Berlin?


  They were shot by guards
• How many East Germans had crossed the border by 1958?


  3 million