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The Berlin Crisis began in June 1961 when Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, meeting with US President John F. Kennedy at the Vienna summit, reissued an ultimatum which demanded the withdrawal of all armed forces from Berlin, including the Western armed forces in West Berlin.
Berlin crisis of 1961, Cold War conflict between the Soviet Union and the United States concerning the status of the divided German city of Berlin. It culminated in the construction of the Berlin Wall in August 1961 and the solidifying of Soviet and NATO spheres of influence in Europe.
The Berlin Crisis, 1958–1961. On November 10, 1958, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev delivered a speech in which he demanded that the Western powers of the United States, Great Britain and France pull their forces out of West Berlin within six months.
On October 27, 1961, the provocative games took a serious turn as another probe prompted the Soviets to deploy 10 tanks on the Eastern side of Checkpoint Charlie. The US had been using tanks to support their escorts of vehicles into East Berlin, and now was met by equal force.
With the threat of an East German shutdown of the last access point to East Berlin, a Berlin Command Op Plan for November 1961 recorded the plan to demolish any barriers and knock down the wall and any associated obstacles along the U.S.-Soviet Sector.
When East German border guards began stringing barbed wire on 13 August 1961 – the first step in constructing what soon became known as the Berlin Wall – NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] and the West had already been confronted by an on-again, off-again crisis over Berlin since late 1958.
At a summit in Vienna in June 1961, Khrushchev told Kennedy he intended to sign a separate peace treaty with East Germany; one of the implications of this treaty would be the nullification of the old Soviet-Allied agreement guaranteeing road, rail and air access into Berlin.
On August 13, 1961, the Communist government of the German Democratic Republic (GDR, or East Germany) began to build a barbed wire and concrete “Antifascistischer Schutzwall,” or “antifascist...
The Berlin Crisis concerned the occupational status of the city and the numbers of East Germans fleeing to West Berlin, said to be some 2.7 million people. Khrushchev delivered an ultimatum, demanding foreign troops withdraw within a period of 6 months.
The Berlin Wall was built in 1961 and for 28 years, it stood as the front line of the Cold War between the Western world order, led by the U.S., and the Soviets.