Berlin Wall

American

noun

a guarded concrete wall, 28 miles (45 km), with minefields and controlled checkpoints, erected across Berlin by East Germany in 1961 and dismantled in 1989.

Berlin wall ¹ Cultural

A wall that separated West Berlin, Germany, from East Germany, which surrounded it until 1989. At the end of World War II, the victorious Allies divided Berlin, the German capital, into four sectors. The eastern, or Russian, sector became the capital of communist East Germany. The French, British, and American sectors continued as a prosperous Western “island” city surrounded by East Germany. From then until 1961, many East Germans, sometimes two thousand a day, fled to West Berlin, often with nothing more than the clothes they had on their backs. In the summer of 1961, the wall was built, and East Germany forbade its citizens to cross the wall, at the risk of being shot immediately by border guards. In November 1989, the East German government reopened the border and issued visas to East Berliners. The Berliners celebrated by breaking off pieces of the wall at a mass demonstration, which lasted into the next day. The wall has since been demolished.

Berlin Wall ² Cultural

Fortified concrete and wire barrier that separated East and West Berlin from 1961 to 1989. It was built by the government of what was then East Germany to keep East Berliners from defecting to the West.

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The Berlin wall was one of the most visible signs of the cold war and has become a symbol (see also symbol) of the Iron Curtain and totalitarianism.

The Berlin Wall was a symbol (see also symbol) of the inability of a communist state to keep its citizens from leaving when they have a choice.

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Here we come to the lesson from the fall of the Berlin Wall.

From The Wall Street Journal

Leaving Bulgaria after the Berlin Wall fell, at age 29, she and her physicist husband first lived in France—he had only $10 when he arrived—then Canada, where she became a receptionist and taught herself to type after work hours.

From The Wall Street Journal

When the Berlin Wall came down and the Soviet Union collapsed, the need for a large standing army seemed like a thing of the past.

From The Wall Street Journal

He recounts marveling at the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of communism, which released Eastern Europe from bondage and allowed his own country to emerge from the shadow of the Soviet Union.

From The Wall Street Journal

In 1987, Ronald Reagan stood before the Berlin Wall and challenged Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to tear it down.

From The Wall Street Journal

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023