Review
By 1958 nearly 3 million East
Germans, many of them young and educated, had fled to the West through the porous
border between East and West Berlin that allowed
people to cross in and out of the zones for work. This left about 17
million in East Germany with a further 200,000+
leaving every year. East Germany was facing an
implosion if the exodus was not stopped - hence the
construction of the Berlin Wall.
According to Frederick Taylor, although the Wall
was instigated and constructed by the East Germans, the
"leaders of the free world" at the time (Kennedy, Macmillan and de
Gaulle) were not agin the construction of a physical
barrier to constrict the outflow of people from East
Germany that threatened to destabilize the country,
which in turn...
Beyond the Book
A short guide to some notable
historic barriers:
Hadrian's Wall was
built in AD 122. It measures 80
Roman miles (73.5
miles/117 km). It was the second
of three stone and turf
fortifications the Romans built
across Britain to prevent
military raids by the Picts (who
inhabited what is now Scotland)
but is best known as it is the
best preserved. The lesser known
walls are
Gask Ridge, built about 40
years before Hadrian's Wall, and
the
Antoine Wall, built farther...
