The reputation held by the Berlin Wall before it was ‘torn down’ twenty years ago was largely a product of propaganda machines. Clearly, it was just another Cold War myth. It played neatly into a Cold War cliché about The Free World vs. Communist Tyranny. ‘In 1961, the East Berlin communists built a wall to keep their oppressed citizens from escaping to West Berlin and freedom. Why? Because commies don’t like people to be free, to learn the “truth”.’

That alone was a myth. ‘Before the wall went up thousands of East Germans had been commuting to the West for jobs each day and then returned to the East in the evening. So they were clearly not being held in the East against their will.’

The truth is that the wall was built because the West was vigorously ‘recruiting East German professionals and skilled workers, who had been educated at the expense of the Communist government. This eventually led to a serious labor and production crisis in the East.’

Also, ‘American coldwarriors in West Germany instituted a crude campaign of sabotage and subversion against East Germany designed to throw that country’s economic and administrative machinery out of gear’ during the 1950s.

Therefore, the wall had less to do with communist tyranny than with the freedom of the Free World to do what they wanted to do.

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Via counterpunch