What did West Germany think about the Berlin Wall?

I was raised in a small village in Northern Germany, some 350 km away from Berlin. The relationship between East and West Germany was a permanent issue in the news, and as a teenager I found it incredibly boring. read more

East Germany closed the borders between East and West Germany and sealed off the border with West Berlin in 1952; but because of the quadripartite Allied status of the city, the 46-kilometre (29 mi)-long sectorial border between East and West Berlin remained open. read more

The Soviet Union had rejected East Germany’s original request to build the wall in 1953, but with defections through West Berlin reaching 1,000 people a day by the summer of 1961, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev finally relented. read more