The Wall cemented the political division of Germany and Europe; it became a worldwide symbol of the Cold War, which split the world politically into an eastern and a western hemisphere – and a symbol of the failure of a dictatorship that was only able to secure its existence by walling in its population.
There is debate among historians on whether Walter Ulbricht or Nikita Khrushchev began the construction of the Berlin Wall.
In response to Allied efforts to fuse the American, French, and British sectors of western Germany into a federal state, American refusal to grant the Soviets war reparations from industrial areas of western Germany, and to a currency reform undertaken by the western powers without Soviet approval, the Soviets blocked ground access to West Berlin on 26 June 1948, in what became known as the "Berlin Blockade", in the hope of gaining control of the whole of Berlin. The Western Allies undertook a massive logistical effort to supply the western sectors of the city through the Berlin Airlift, known by the West Berliners as "die Luftbrücke" (the Air Bridge).
The blockade lasted almost a year, ending when the Soviets once again allowed ground access to West Berlin on 11 May 1949.60 construction workers building the showpiece Stalin-Allee in East Berlin went on strike on 16 June 1953, to demand a reduction in recent work-quota increases. They called for a general strike the next day, 17 June. The general strike and protest marches turned into rioting and spread throughout East Germany. The East German police failed to quell the unrest. It had to be suppressed by Soviet troops, who encountered stiff resistance from angry crowds across East Germany, and responded with live ammunition. At least 153 people were killed in the suppression of the uprising.