After World War II, the victors agreed to separate Germany into 4 zones. These zones would be occupied by the United States, Britain, France, and the Soviet Union. Germany’s capital, Berlin, was also divided into 4 sectors amongst the former …show more content…
“In the week after the wall opened, about three million East Germans crossed into West Berlin” (Grant 45). The mass emigration around Germany brought increases and decreases to the economy. The fall of communism led to poverty and unemployment for many. Living expenses rose and many business closed. Also, tensions heightened as East and West Germans clashed over their different lifestyles and changing personalities due to the long separation by the Berlin Wall. Political figures in the newly unified Germany scrambled to invent a new form of government, which soon came to known as, Democratic Capitalist. On March 18th of 1990, free elections were allowed in the East. This birth of democracy and the fall of communism led to the Soviet Union’s downfall. “In Czechoslovakia, mass demonstrations forced the communist government to resign on November 24th, 1989, in the ‘Velvet Revolution’ that took hold of the USSR” (Grant 45). Independence movements began to rise in the USSR, and many states broke away from Russia. In December, the Russian Federation and Ukraine followed suit and created the Commonwealth of Independent