Germans from traveling across to West Germany !? And !.!.!.!. what was it that prevented anyone inside the Iron Curtain of the Soviet Union from traveling to the West !?!?Www@QuestionHome@Com
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Position:Home>History> I know that the Berlin wall seperated East Berlin from West Berlin but .... whatQuestion: I know that the Berlin wall seperated East Berlin from West Berlin but !.!.!.!. what was it that prevented Eastern Germans from traveling across to West Germany !? And !.!.!.!. what was it that prevented anyone inside the Iron Curtain of the Soviet Union from traveling to the West !?!?Www@QuestionHome@Com
Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: Check points on all roads entering and leaving the country!. No matter how hard they tried, the Soviets could not stop everyone from leaving!. There is a museum in Berlin that shows some of the really interestng ways people tried to use in order to leave the East!. What prevented people from leaving!?!?!?!? Mostly fear! and that is a very powerful incentive not to go!. As you know, their methods only worked for 75 years!. That is too many in my way of thinking, but it is still only the number of years that they were successful with their tactics!. You can read many accounts of people who lived behind the Iron Curtain!. Many have been translated into English and they are very good accounts of the lives the people lived under the thumb of Communism!.Www@QuestionHome@Com Armed guards and barbed wire fences totally separated the East and West--in Germany, Checko,, Poland, Hungary and elsewhere!. The Soviet Union were cautious in dealing out visas and rights to travel!. And if one left a family member behind and defected to the West, those family members could receive punishment!. In the SU, a citizen even had to have a permit to travel to other cities within the SU!. Thus movement was very restricted!.Www@QuestionHome@Com many reasons!. firstly the wall was physical!. there was barbed wire, armed guards and many things preventing people going west!. furthermore, all the countries east of the wall were forced to accept communism because they knew that the democracies couldnt help them so near to russiaWww@QuestionHome@Com Big freakin wall with barbed wire - oh and all your neighbors are paid to turn eachother in if they plan to run!. they shoot you down if you try to fly out - think hot air baloon - and they ahve guns at checkpoint Charlie!. Fear of being killed and fear of the unknown were huge in this!. Easterners didn't really know what the other side /free world was like!. They were told it was chaos and no one had food, jobs etc!.Www@QuestionHome@Com Grenztruppen der DDR (Border troops of the German Democratic Republic) previously the Grenzpolizei (border police), dogs, mines and automatic firing devices!. http://www!.grenzer!.com/GTmain!.htm http://ddr5!.homestead!.com/files/gm/gm!.ht!.!.!.Www@QuestionHome@Com the east gearmans could leagaly go to and from west gearmany (but they had to have papers and stuff) they had border patrol that would stop anyone from crossing the iron curtainWww@QuestionHome@Com Border controls of fences and armed guards!.Www@QuestionHome@Com Big guards with big gunsWww@QuestionHome@Com |