Walling in and walling out: The politics and propaganda of the Second Berlin Crisis, 1958-1962

The Second Berlin Crisis (1958-1962), which left the infamous legacy of the Berlin Wall, provides an excellent window into the attitudes of the western leadership with regard to the Cold War. Because it spanned several elections and administrative changes and involved leaders of different political affiliations and generations, a careful examination of Crisis policies and goals yields insight into the common beliefs of the era. The Crisis began with Soviet chairman Nikita Khrushchev's declaration that a quadripartite peace treaty must be signed with the two German states or else the Soviet occupation forces would unilaterally withdraw from Berlin, thereby abandoning agreements concluded with the US, France and Great Britain. Coming at the end of a conflict-ridden and tumultuous decade, western governmental analysts perceived this as a direct challenge to the West's position in Germany and as an attempt to undermine the strength of the US-led alliance. The Allies responded with a bifurcated approach the pursuit of East-West negotiations about the future of Germany and Berlin, and the initiation of a propaganda campaign intended to rally inter- and extra-Alliance popular support for the defense of West Berlin, the future of which was directly threatened by the Crisis. This study reveals that, despite recurrent factiousness, real Soviet military capabilities were less worrisome than the danger posed by Moscow's political appeal and the appearance of superiority. Because of the Intellectual and ideological nature of the threat, the defense of the West rested not so much on the quantifiable strength of its arsenal as on the non-Communist community's faith in its own ability to resist and ultimately defeat the Soviet bloc.