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2: A PHYSICAL METAPHOR<br />
established in people’s minds that this did not cause as much controversy as<br />
the erection of the Berlin Wall in 1961. As this border, as well as the<br />
fortification of other borders throughout Europe, had helped to stifle postwar<br />
chaos and violence and subsequently developed step by step, sometimes<br />
even with the consent of the local population, the final closing of the Inner<br />
German Border in 1952 did not receive that much attention. The fences were<br />
already there in peoples’ minds. In other places in Europe, borders between<br />
the countries that aligned themselves with the western and the eastern bloc<br />
became more and more militarised. The difference in other places, such as the<br />
borders between former Czechoslovakia and Hungary with Austria was that<br />
the majority of the border infrastructure was constructed well inside the<br />
eastern side of the actual borders, often away from the gaze of the western<br />
neighbours. The official goal here, as in East Germany, was to keep the enemy<br />
out but the majority of the structures were focussed on the threat from<br />
within, their own population. The main focus in these long sections of<br />
militarised border zones was to make sure that nobody could get across these<br />
areas and through to the West.<br />
In contrast during the 1960s, when the Berlin Wall was constructed, the<br />
European division became acutely obvious to the world. Here the border,<br />
which had previously been much more open than the borders between<br />
other East and West zones in the divided Germany went through a<br />
homogenous society. The border left West Berlin a floating island within<br />
what increasingly felt like ‘enemy territory’. In her article The Berlin Wall –<br />
a Symbol of the Cold War Era historian Hope Harrison (2005) looks at how<br />
the Berlin Wall came to be and points out that the wall is often seen as a<br />
result of Soviet aggression. Her studies of Soviet and East German<br />
documents show, however, that the Soviet leaders refused to sanction the<br />
building of a militarised border through the city of Berlin as they felt there<br />
would be too many negative consequences of such an act. Documents show<br />
that GDR leader Walter Ulbricht had been pushing for a building of a wall<br />
since 1953 but only in 1961 did he manage to persuade Soviet leader Nikita<br />
Khruschev into agreeing to such a construction (Harrison 2005:19–23).<br />
When the Berlin Wall was built in August 1961 it was the first time people<br />
could really see the division clearly, even touch it. Before this the militarised<br />
borders that had developed across the European continent had generally<br />
been hidden from view through protected zones and with fencing<br />
constructions placed several kilometres inside the different countries’<br />
western borders. The fact that this border also came to divide a capital also<br />
became an important factor in the attention it was given. In a war that was<br />
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