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Berlin Wall Interview

Interviewers: Lena and Liesel Kemmelmeier   Interviewee: Peter Baldwin

Peter Baldwin is a professor at the University of California Los Angeles and researches

comparative history of modern Europe and the United States. In addition Baldwin has

also visited Berlin multiple times in the late !"s.

Interviewer: How did Post-War Berlin impact the Cold War?

Peter: The division of Berlin meant that the Cold War confrontation had a focal point to play out

in, a place where the confrontation between East and West was concentrated and flared up

continuously.

Interviewer: How was the Berlin Wall’s division an obstacle for oviet and Cold

War-a!ents?

Peter: Only insofar as before the Wall it was easier for aents from both sides to et in and out

of the other sphere. Berlin before the Wall was the only place where the East and West had an

open border to each other. That is why the Wall was eventually built, because too many East

!ermans were fleein to the West in the early "#$%s and East !ermany was losin too many

of its trained wor&ers' doctors, enineers and the li&e who could et ood (obs in the West.

 

Interviewer: "id ideals help define oviet and #merican powers? Can this

difference be applied to $ast and West Berlin?

 

Peter: Berlin was where the Communist East and the free'mar&et Capitalist West faced each

other most dramatically. When you went across the wall from West to East Berlin )which * did

many times bac& in the late "#+%s it was li&e travellin -% years into the past. The East was

run'down, poor, dimly'lit. The stores had nothin to buy in them. The buildins were

unrenovated, still poc&ed with bullet holes from the war. !rim'faced policeman were

everywhere. *t was li&e wal&in into a "#%s movie, an absolutely e/traordinary contrast.

*ndeed, it was almost as thouh society was blac& and white, li&e a movie. They had no money

for paint so basically by the "#+%s, the last time anythin had been iven a fresh coat of paint

was in the %s, half a century earlier. Everythin was rey.

Interviewer: How did the Berlin Wall involve m%ltiple powers?

8/17/2019 Interview (Peter)

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Peter: The Wall involved the four occupyin powers, with the 0oviets havin half of Berlin

)which by the way was the old downtown area with most of the official buildin, while the

western part of Berlin was the more residential area around the 1urf2rstendamm. The western

half was then divided amon the western allies, via the 3mericans, British, and the 4rench. But

those 5ones weren6t really divided amon each other, so basically the division was betweenEast and West.