how did the russians block off all access to west germany?

Answer 1

West Berlin was blocked from East Berin by the famous wall.

However West Germany was blocked from East Germany by the fact the border was a warzone waiting to happen. There were a million soldiers of both sides looking at that border- keeping people out in case they were enemies, and keeping people in in case they were defectors.

Some people tried to cross this border but apparently only 250 people a year achieved it. Most people who did cross went via the Czech-Austrian border or similar.

In addition from 1945-1950 large numbers of people deemed likely to oppose the Communist regime ended up in Stalin's gulags. Among these were all those most likely to emigrate to West Germany. At the same time it was made relatively easy to move to South America- which provided an alternative for them.

Answer 2

The lands occupied by Germany at the end of the war were divided between the Allied Powers - France, Russia, UK and USA. The capital of Germany, Berlin, was also divided between the Allies, with different sectors controlled by each. Berlin was within the Russian-controlled part of Germany. Russia used her occupying army, and then the police and army of its satellite government in East Germany, to control the borders of its occupied territories. But within Berlin, people could go to one of the other sectors and then fly out. So the East German government blocked access to West Berlin, first with blockades and then with the Berlin wall.

Answer 3

The Russians easily prevented land access to West Berlin (not West Germany) because West Berlin was completely landlocked by East Germany. However, they couldn't stop supplies getting in by air, hence the Berlin airlift.

Answer 4

The Russians never actually blocked of access to all of West Germany. They blocked of access to the western portion of Berlin. Berlin was the capital and it was occupied by both sides. Hence, you have the "Berlin Wall" that restricted access between the eastern and western portions of Berlin and not all of Germany.

Answer 5

this is an exceedingly interesting factor, Uncle Rico. A in undemanding terms protecting conflict via a German military based thoroughly interior of its very own borders, near to its components of furnish and having a delightful inhabitants helping them--quite than having a adversarial French and/or Belgian inhabitants to look after, plus the glaring subject of an avoidable conflict with Britain if Belgium replaced into left by myself. i ask your self what might have occurred if Kaiser Wilhelm had not been this type of warm-head, and had used slightly extra strategic and tactical experience in his attitude to the conflict. interior the form, there might have been a constrained western preserving action (a phony conflict or 'sitzkrieg' as that they had at first of WW2) till the Germans had defeated the Russian armies interior the east and forced a resign on them. that could have been performed via 1916 on the main cutting-edge. subsequently, the Germans might desire to then have placed a protection tension of old reservists on the eastern front and became their almost-finished interest to the west. scary the French to attack them--which the French could have been in undemanding terms too satisfied to do, because of the fact the French armies have been nonetheless following the Napoleonic dictum that attack replaced into the superb protection--the Germans might have hunkered down of their bunkers and basically hammered absolutely everyone who got here at them. A conflict of protection consistently supply the income. The persist with-on from a possibly German victory could have been (each possibly) no desire for WW2--till France had felt the will for a conflict of revenge against Germany...

Answer 6

There seem to be some very confused answers here. First, to understand the division of Europe into East and West, one has to look at the Yalta Agrrement reached by Joseph Stalin, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston S. Churchill in February 11, 1945. (For details of this please see the first link)

In essence, the three major allied powers divided up control of Europe between them, laying down spheres of influence and control. As all combatants wanted war reparations from Germany, Germany was divided on a line which roughly followed the height of the Soviet advance at the end of the war, thereby effectively cutting it in two, leaving Berlin in the Eastern sector. A separate aggremment was reached between the powers on how Berlin should be divided up. Tensions between the powers eventually led to the building of the 'Berlin Wall' in August 13, 1961. The wall, a physical barricade up to 3.2 metres in height, entirely surrounded the American, British and French sectors of Berlin, creating an enclave within Eastern Germany. Until 1961 East German citizens were allowed to travel to West Berlin.The Wall was erected in 1961 because more than 2.6 million East Germans escaped to West Berlin or West Germany from 1949 to 1961 (total population of East Germany was about 17 million!).

In May 1952 the open border (Zonengrenze) between East and West Germany was closed by the East German government.
In the years after 1952 it became more difficult and dangerous to escape to the West over this border.
However, the sectorial borders between East and West Berlin were not closed. Many East German citizen went to East Berlin and from there to West Berlin. Once arrived in West Berlin they stayed there or fled out to West Germany.

East Germany lost too many skilled workers in these years.
Another big problem were the two currencies in Germany and especially in Berlin. West German DM had been exchanged into East German DM at a rate of 1:4 (1 DM West = 4 DM Ost) in West Berlin. People with West German DM could get goods very cheaply in the Eastern part of Berlin.

The Iron Curtain was the divide between those countries and land areas who fell under the control and influence of the Western Allies on one hand and the Soviet Union on the other.

The Iron Curtain was a political, military, economic and ideological barrier erected by the Soviet Union after World War II to seal off itself and its satellite eastern European allies from open contact with the West and other noncommunist areas. It was these political, military, economic and ideological barriers, cemented by COMECON, The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance 1949 – 1991, being an economic organization of communist states and a kind of Eastern Bloc equivalent to—but more inclusive than—the European Economic Community. The military counterpart to the Comecon was the Warsaw Pact, the Western equivalent being NATO. It was by these means that the Soviet Union blocked access, not only to West Germany, but to all Western Europe, by Warsaw pact states.

Answer 7

Built a huge wall with machine gun posts every 100 yards and checkpoints for commerce but only trusted Communists were allowed out

Answer 8

I'm no historian but there was the Berlin wall at the time. One side went to Russia and one side went to the west and that's why one side of Berlin was called East Berlin.

Answer 9

The Iron Curtain, known otherwise to contemporary society as the Berlin Wall, initially built by construction brigades of East German workers and soldiers; subsequently supplemented by Russian solders and American efforts, much to the embarrassment of the Soviet republic and chagrin of the East German administrator.

Physical characteristics of The Iron Curtain:

- Anti-vehicular tank traps
- Chain-fences, barbed-wire fences, anti-personnel minefields
- NVA and KdA soldiers held orders to kill anyone who attempted to defect during the rebuilding
- Berlin Brigade to monitor border crossings after the wall was completed.
- Watch Towers
- However, U-Bahn (street elevated trains) and the S-Bahn moved between the divide
- Immigration monitored with border passports and tickets


Berliner Mauer or Antifaschistischer Schutzwall (1961 to 1968) in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Berlin), approved by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, backed by a puppet people’s representative of East Berlin. Popular notion has it that it was built in over a night in 1961.

The intention was retain power to control and govern East Berlin by halting the exodus of manpower from East to West Berlin.

(Man power losses from East Berlin recorded as 2.5 million between 1949 and 1962 to 5,000 between 1962 and 1989.)

Fluctuations of manpower serves to fuel change to economies, politics and associative cultural causes like race and religion. Labour immigration today is a contentious issue as was then, only now it is with illegal immigrants.

The root cause goes back to the end of World War II in Europe. Germany was divided into four occupation zones. 1949, the British, American and French, formed into the Federal Republic of Germany (FDR) occupying West Berlin; the remaining portion formed the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in East Berlin.

Cross examine some of the several roots causes (too many to list here):

- Threat of peace treaty from Khrushchev that West Berlin should become a "Free City" within six months.
- East Berlin workers protests against low wages and bad conditions (June 1953). Soviet tanks disperses the crowd with machine gun fire;
- Rebuilding Western Europe was funded by the Marshall Plan, attracting professionals from East Berlin;
- German parliamentary leader Heinrich von Brentano, president of the six-nation Schuman Plan committee was charged with drafting a constitution for a proposed European federation in the Treaty of Rome, 1957;
- “Antifaschistischer Schutzwall” was claimed to dissuade ill influences of Western capitalists, backed by Walter Ulbricht, East German’s head of administration;
- Party politics and face saving speech that John F. Kennedy had earlier made that to defend Western Germany was possible;
- Armand Hammer's service to the Kremlin chiefs;
- Worth considering are the Spandau suburbs and former; Scheunenviertel behind the Hackescher Markt of Jewish life in Berlin. Jewish elements had in no small part affected the decision making of the East Berlin central authority of the time;
- Economic boom time fueling labour demand, skilled labour in the ages of 25 to 40 year olds migrate.


Largely prompted by a booming economy of the capitalist Bolshevik Western nations; against that of the proud proclamations and adamant success of communist ideology administered under the Soviet empire:

Mutually, one may venture that representatives of democracy and communism feared what the other would do in the face of pride of man.

Answer 10

With a wall!!!

Started with barb wire and guards, escalated to more fences and more guards, once the scared the people into submission, they built a wall....a big friggin wall.