| Reunification of Germany |
| In 1989 the wall separating what once was one Germany into two, came down. The wall was called the Berlin Wall. The wall, built in 1961, was dismantled because of the lack of jurisdiction it held. The wall was built to keep East Germans in East Germany, but when Hungary flexed its boarders with Austria, it allowed people east of the Berlin Wall, also known as the Iron Curtain, to get into the Western part of Europe. People would just travel from East Germany to Hungary, through Austria, and into West Germany. The wall was dismantled peacefully, because the East German government could do nothing about it. After people began to knock it down, the military began to help, and so did people on both sides of the wall. It was the greatest feeling of liberation the people of East Germany had felt in their lives. The fall of the Berlin wall also is the beginning of the end of the Soviet Union, of the Soviet domination of East Europe and of the Communist regimes that have ruled in the region since 1945. |