The Berlin wall

Construction of the Berlin Wall began on August 13 1961 as a way of separating the three zones controlled by France, Britain and America from the zone controlled by the Soviet Union.

After World War Two, Germany was split into four zones, each occupied by one of the four Allied powers that defeated the Nazis. The zones controlled by France, Great Britain and America became West Germany, or Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Federal Republic of Germany). The Soviet-controlled zone became East Germany, or Deutsche Demokratische Republik (Germany Democratic Republic). Germany's capital, Berlin, was situated in Soviet-controlled East Germany , but as this city was the administrative area for the Allied forces, it too was split into four. This meant that France, Great Britain and America controlled West Berlin, whereas the Soviet Union controlled the East. Relations between America and the Soviet Union soured considerably during much of the second half of the Twentieth Century. The Berlin Wall was a symbol of this hostility, a physical representation of what was called the Iron Curtain. Berlin Wall was constructed as a way of preventing East Germans from entering West Germany. It was not so much a boundary for West Germans wanting to enter the East, who were able to do so by obtaining a permit several weeks in advance. It didn't face much opposition by the western powers as its construction confirmed that the Soviet Union were not planning to take over West Berlin.
Despite there being a wall separating East from West, there were a number of checkpoints that allowed passage to and from the two sides. The most famous of these was Checkpoint Charlie, a checkpoint separating the American-controlled zone of West Berlin from the Soviet-controlled East Berlin. The guard house for Checkpoint Charlie was removed in October 1990 and is now situated in the Allied Museum in Berlin-Zehlendorf. The last remnant of Checkpoint Charlie, an East German watchtower, was demolished in 2000.
Reference
https://www.tenfactsabout.co.uk/categories.htm

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