The U2 incident and the Berlin Wall

What the specification asks for

“The U2 incident (1960) and its effects on the Paris Summit Conference. Reasons for the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, including the refugee problem. The effects of the Berlin Wall on relations between East and West Germany and between the Superpowers.” — examined through causation and consequence. Incandio is aligned to specification 4HI1; it is not published by, endorsed by or affiliated with Pearson.

1 · Understand it

The U2, May 1960

American U2 aircraft had been photographing Soviet territory from around 21,000 metres since 1956, above the reach of Soviet interceptors. The USSR knew and said nothing publicly, because protesting would have advertised its inability to stop them. On 1 May 1960, two weeks before a four-power summit in Paris, a U2 flown by Francis Gary Powers was brought down by a surface-to-air missile near Sverdlovsk.

Khrushchev announced the crash and withheld the fact that the pilot was alive. Washington issued a cover story about a weather aircraft that had strayed off course. Khrushchev then produced Powers and the aircraft's camera. Eisenhower, having been publicly caught, took the unusual step of accepting personal responsibility and declining to apologise. At Paris on 16 May Khrushchev demanded an apology, did not get one, and walked out. The summit collapsed and Eisenhower's planned visit to Moscow was cancelled.

The episode ended the limited thaw that had followed Khrushchev's American visit in 1959 and left Berlin unresolved at the moment a new and untested American president took office.

Why the Wall

Berlin was the hole in the Iron Curtain. Anyone in East Germany could travel to East Berlin, walk into the western sectors and be flown out. Between 1949 and 1961 around 2.7 million people left the GDR that way — roughly a sixth of its population — and they were disproportionately young, educated and skilled: doctors, engineers, teachers, skilled workers. In the first days of August 1961 the rate reached over a thousand a day.

This was an existential problem rather than an embarrassment. A state losing its trained workforce at that rate cannot meet a plan, staff a hospital or hold a currency. Ulbricht had pressed Moscow for permission to close the border for years and Khrushchev had refused, partly for fear of the Western reaction.

Kennedy's speech of 25 July 1961 named the three essentials the United States would defend: Western presence in West Berlin, access to it, and the freedom of its people. Every one concerns West Berlin. Nothing was said about movement between the sectors, and the omission was noticed in Moscow.

13 August 1961 and after

In the early hours of Sunday 13 August, East German forces sealed the sector boundary with wire and then with concrete. A wall eventually ran around 155 kilometres, with a death strip, watchtowers and an order to shoot. At least 140 people died at the Berlin Wall; around 100 more died at the inner-German border.

The West protested and did not act. Kennedy sent a battle group down the autobahn and Johnson to Berlin as reassurance, and privately said that a wall was a hell of a lot better than a war. In October 1961 American and Soviet tanks faced each other at Checkpoint Charlie for sixteen hours, and both withdrew by arrangement.

The effects run in two directions and both belong in an answer. For the superpowers it was stabilising: the German question was frozen, the refugee crisis was solved, and no further Berlin ultimatum was issued. For Germans it was a catastrophe — families divided for twenty-eight years, and a state that had to imprison its population to keep it. The Wall is the clearest single physical statement of the Cold War's central fact, which is that one side had to build a barrier to keep people in.

2 · Learn it — the notes

The dates that earn marks

1 May 1960

Powers shot down near Sverdlovsk two weeks before the Paris summit. Why this date: The timing is what makes the incident consequential rather than embarrassing.

16 May 1960

The Paris summit collapses. Why this date: The thaw ends and Berlin is left unresolved for a new administration.

25 July 1961

Kennedy names three essentials, all concerning West Berlin. Why this date: The omission of free movement between sectors was read in Moscow as permission.

13 August 1961

The sector boundary is sealed. Why this date: A Sunday, chosen for minimal traffic and maximum surprise.

October 1961

Tanks face each other at Checkpoint Charlie and withdraw by arrangement. Why this date: The clearest demonstration that both sides were managing the confrontation rather than pursuing it.

The figures, and how far to trust them

• About 2.7 million — People who left the GDR through Berlin between 1949 and 1961.
• Over 1,000 a day — The departure rate in early August 1961.
• About 155 kilometres — The eventual length of the Berlin Wall.
• At least 140 — People killed at the Berlin Wall. (Definitions differ over whether to include those who died in accidents or of heart attacks at checkpoints; around 100 more died at the inner-German border.)

The people to place

• Francis Gary Powers — U2 pilot; survived, was tried in Moscow, and was exchanged in 1962.
• Dwight Eisenhower — Accepted personal responsibility rather than apologise, and lost the summit and his Moscow visit.
• Walter Ulbricht — GDR leader who pressed for the closure and had told a press conference in June 1961 that nobody intended to build a wall.
• John F. Kennedy — Defined the three essentials in July, protested in August, and privately preferred a wall to a war.

What students say — and what is actually the case

Not this: The Wall was built to stop Westerners entering East Berlin.

This: It was built to stop East Germans leaving. Around 2.7 million had gone, disproportionately young and skilled, and the state could not function without them.

Not this: The West was powerless to prevent the Wall.

This: It chose not to. The Wall was built on East German territory, it removed a crisis the West found dangerous, and Kennedy said privately that it was better than a war. Non-intervention was a decision.

Two things students merge

Blurred: The Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain.

The distinction: The Iron Curtain is the whole fortified frontier across Europe from 1945; the Wall is 155 kilometres around West Berlin from 1961. Berlin was the gap in the curtain, which is precisely why the Wall was needed.

Blurred: Stabilising and resolving.

The distinction: The Wall removed the Berlin crisis from the superpower agenda and settled nothing about Germany. An answer that calls it a solution has confused the absence of a crisis with the presence of an agreement.

What a Grade 9 answer holds here

A Grade 9 answer holds that the Wall was a defeat for the GDR and a relief for both superpowers, and can evidence each half. A state that must imprison its population has lost the argument it claims to be winning; and the West's protest without action confirmed the rule established in Hungary, which is what made the next eleven years of negotiation possible.

3 · How it is examined

This strand is genuinely set through: Paper 1 (a) (6 marks — “What impression does the author give about …? You must use Extract A to explain your answer.”); Paper 1 (b) (8 marks — “Explain two effects of … on ….”); Paper 1 (c)(i) or (c)(ii) (16 marks — “'[A statement about the period.]' You may use the following in your answer: • [prompt] • [prompt]. You must also use information of your own. How far do you agree? Explain your answer.”).

What earns marks: The 2.7 million figure and Kennedy's private remark. One explains why the GDR had to act; the other explains why nobody stopped it. Together they answer the whole strand.

4 · Prove it — the questions

Answered inside Incandio, where a marker checks what a correct answer must contain and tells you which half was missing. The marking stays in the app; the questions are here.

1. Explain two reasons for the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961. [8 marks · Paper 1 (b)]
2. Explain two effects of the Berlin Wall on relations between the superpowers. [8 marks · Paper 1 (b)]
3. Explain two effects of the U2 incident on superpower relations. [8 marks · Paper 1 (b)]
4. 'The Berlin Wall made Europe more stable.' How far do you agree? Explain your answer. [16 marks · Paper 1 (c)(i) or (c)(ii)]
5. 'The Berlin Wall was a defeat for the Soviet Union.' How far do you agree? Explain your answer. [16 marks · Paper 1 (c)(i) or (c)(ii)]

Decide it

This lesson feeds a Decide History judgement — a position you commit to, an objection you answer, a criterion you name: Did the Berlin Wall make Europe more dangerous, or less?.

Carry on through the option

• Previous lesson, in key topic 3: The nuclear arms race
• Next lesson: The Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis
• Also in this key topic: Czechoslovakia 1968 and the Brezhnev Doctrine
• Key topic 4 · Three crises: Berlin, Cuba and Czechoslovakia · A world divided: superpower relations, 1943–72 · the option's timeline · Incandio History
• The other key topics of A world divided: Reasons for the Cold War · Early developments in the Cold War, 1945–49 · The Cold War in the 1950s · The Thaw and moves towards Détente, 1963–72