West Berlin was a political exclave of West Germany that existed as an enclave of East Germany between 1949 and 1990. It comprised the western regions of Berlin, which were bordered by East Berlin and parts of East Germany. West Berlin consisted of the American, British, and French occupation sectors, which had been established in 1945. It was politically closely affiliated with West Germany, although it had a special status, because its administration was formally conducted by the Western Allies. East Berlin encompassed the region occupied and administered by the Soviet Union, and was claimed as its capital by East Germany. The Western Allies did not recognise this claim, as they asserted that the entire city of Berlin was legally under four-power administration. The Berlin Wall, built in 1961, physically divided East and West Berlin until it fell in 1989.
With about two million inhabitants, West Berlin had the highest number of residents of any city in Cold War-era Germany.
Read more about West Berlin: Origins, Legal Status, Citizenship, Immigration, Naming Conventions, Period Following The Building of The Wall, Exclaves, Transport and Transit Travel, Post and Telecommunications, Boroughs of West Berlin
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“Sometimes, because of its immediacy, television produces a kind of electronic parable. Berlin, for instance, on the day the Wall was opened. Rostropovich was playing his cello by the Wall that no longer cast a shadow, and a million East Berliners were thronging to the West to shop with an allowance given them by West German banks! At that moment the whole world saw how materialism had lost its awesome historic power and become a shopping list.”
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