Berlin Wall

noun

1. a guarded concrete wall, 28 miles (45 km), with minefields and controlled checkpoints, erected across Berlin by East Germany in 1961 and dismantled in 1989.

Berlin Wall

¹

1. Fortified concrete and wire barrier that separated East and West Berlin from 1961 to 1989. It was built by the government of what was then East Germany to keep East Berliners from defecting to the West.

Berlin wall

²

1. A wall that separated West Berlin , Germany , from East Germany , which surrounded it until 1989. At the end of World War II , the victorious Allies divided Berlin, the German capital, into four sectors. The eastern, or Russian, sector became the capital of communist East Germany. The French, British, and American sectors continued as a prosperous Western “island” city surrounded by East Germany. From then until 1961, many East Germans, sometimes two thousand a day, fled to West Berlin, often with nothing more than the clothes they had on their backs. In the summer of 1961, the wall was built, and East Germany forbade its citizens to cross the wall, at the risk of being shot immediately by border guards. In November 1989, the East German government reopened the border and issued visas to East Berliners. The Berliners celebrated by breaking off pieces of the wall at a mass demonstration, which lasted into the next day. The wall has since been demolished.

Notes

The Berlin Wall was a symbol (see also symbol ) of the inability of a communist state to keep its citizens from leaving when they have a choice.

Example Sentences

We’re in a place of not just one Berlin Wall, but several Berlin Walls going up in every city.

From Outside Online

What prompted you to pick the fall of the Berlin Wall as the backdrop for your thriller?

From The Daily Beast

Along with the fall of the Berlin Wall, it is one of my all-time great experiences as a journalist.

From The Daily Beast

The Berlin Wall had fallen, Soviet troops limped out of Afghanistan, and the Soviet economy was in tatters.

From The Daily Beast

The fall of the Berlin Wall was of course no accident, either as fact or metaphor.

From The Daily Beast

The Berlin Wall has fallen and his books, extolling the “economic miracle” of East Germany, are antiquated.

From The Daily Beast