The Origins of the Berlin Wall

Documents

14 June 1948, CIA Report on Effect of Soviet Restrictions on the U.S. Position in Berlin 

28 September 1948, Consequences of a Breakdown in Four-Power Negotiations on Germany

10 December 1948, CIA Memoradum for the President on the Situation in Berlin

2 January 1953, CPSU CC Resolution Approving the Deployment of Border Guards along the Eastern Border of the GDR

18 March 1953, Draft Instructions for General Vasilii Chuikov and Vladimir Semyonov Regarding the GDR Control of Borders

15 May 1953, Memorandum from the Soviet Ministry of Internal Affairs to V. Semyonov, "On the Question of Preventing the Defection of Inhabitants from the GDR to West Germany"

18 May 1953, Memorandum from Gen. Vasilii Chuikov, Pavel Yudin, and Ivan Il'ichev to Georgii Malenkov Critically Assessing the Situation in the GDR 

17 June 1953, Radio Telegram from Vladimir Semyonov Providing Situation Report to Vyacheslav Molotov and Nikolai Bulganin as of 2:00 p.m. CET

19 June 1953, NSC 158: United States Objectives and Actions to Exploit the Unrest in the Satellite States

4 July 1953, Memorandum from Vladimir Semyonov and Pavel Yudin to Vyacheslav Molotov Regarding Inter-Zonal Movement in Berlin

The East German Uprising of 1953

Publications

The Soviet Occupation: Moscow's Man in (East) Berlin

Stalin and the SED Leadership, 7 April 1952: "You Must Organize Your Own State"

Reexamining Soviet Policy Towards Germany During the Beria Interregnum

“This Is Not A Politburo, But A Madhouse” The Post-Stalin Succession Struggle, Soviet Deutschlandpolitik and the SED: New Evidence from Russian, German, and Hungarian Archives

Malenkov on the German Question, 2 June 1953

The United States, the East German Uprising of 1953, and the Limits of Rollback

Western Intelligence and the Division of German Science

The Berlin Crisis of 1958-1961

Documents

30 November 1960, Record of Meeting of Comrade N.S. Khrushchev with Comrade W. Ulbricht

15 September 1961, Letter from [Walter] Ulbricht to [Nikita] Khrushchev

28 September 1961, Letter from [Nikita] Khrushchev to [Walter] Ulbricht,

Publications

New Evidence on Khrushchev's 1958 Berlin Ultimatum

Khrushchev's November 1958 Berlin Ultimatum: New Evidence from the Polish Archives

“Operation Atom” The Soviet Union’s Stationing of Nuclear Missiles in the German Democratic Republic, 1959

The Berlin Crisis and the Khrushchev-Ulbricht Summits in Moscow, 9 and 18 June 1959

Exploiting and Securing the Open Border in Berlin: The Western Secret Services, the Stasi, and the Second Berlin Crisis, 1958-1961

Ulbricht and the Concete 'Rose': New Archival Evidence on the Dynamics of Soviet-East German Relations and the Berlin Crisis, 1958-1961

Khrushchev's Secret Speech on the Berlin Crisis, August 1961 [Document]

New Sources on the Berlin Crisis 1958-1962

Khrushchev and the Berlin Crisis

The End of the Berlin Crisis, 1961-1962: New Evidence From the Polish and East German Archives

The Fall of the Berlin Wall

Documents

26 November 1980, Letter from [Erich] Honecker to [Leonid] Brezhnev

9 October 1989, Telegram from the Romanian Embassy in Berlin to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs

1 November 1989, Memorandum of Conversation Between Egon Krenz, Secretary general of the Socialist Unity Party (SED) and Mikhail S. Gorbachev, Secretary General of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU)

6 November 1989, Note of Conversation on GDR-FRG Economic Cooperation

7 November 1989, Minutes No. 49 of the Meeting of the SED Politburo

9 November 1989, Draft Transit Rules

9 November 1989, Transcript of the Tenth Session of the SED Central Committee

9 November 1989, Press Conference Announcing the New Transit Rules

10 November 1989, Verbal Message from Mikhail Gorbachev to Helmut Kohl

10 November 1989, Verbal Message from Mikhail Gorbachev to Francois Mitterand, Margaret Thatcher and George Bush

Publications

East German Spying Reveals NATO War Plans 

Negotiating One's Own Demise? The GDR's Foreign Ministry and the CSCE Negotiations, Plans, Preparations, Tactics, and Presumptions

The Fall of the Wall: The Unintended Dissolution of East Germany’s Ruling Regime

New Evidence on the "Soviet Factor" in the Peaceful Revolutions of 1989