METRO EAST EDUCATION DISTRICT
COMMON PAPERS
HISTORY PAPER 1
GRADE 12
SEPTEMBER 2015
ADDENDUM
QUESTION 1:
HOW DID THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE
BERLIN WALL BY THE GERMAN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC
INTENSIFY COLD WAR TENSIONS IN THE 1960s?
SOURCE 1A
The extract below is titled ‘The construction of the Berlin Wall’. It reflects on the reasons for
the construction on 13 August 1961.
Around 2.7 million people left the GDR (German Democratic Republic) and East Berlin
between 1949 and 1961, causing increasing difficulties for the leadership of the East
German communist party, the SED (Socialist Unity Party of Germany). Around half of this
steady stream of refugees was young people under the age of 25. Roughly half a million
people crossed the sector borders in Berlin each day in both directions, enabling them to
compare living conditions on both sides. In 1960 alone, around 200,000 people made a
permanent move to the West. The GDR was on the brink of social and economic collapse.
As late as 15 June 1961, GDR head of state Walter Ulbricht declared that no one had any
intention of building a wall. On 12 August 1961, the GDR Council of Ministers announced
that ‘in order to put a stop to the hostile activity of West Germany’s and West Berlin’s
revanchist (seeking vengeance) and militaristic forces, border controls of the kind, generally
found in every sovereign state, will be set up at the border of the German Democratic
Republic, including the border to the western sectors of Greater Berlin.’ What the Council
did not say was that this measure was directed primarily against the GDR's own population,
which would no longer be permitted to cross the border.
In the early morning hours of 13 August 1961, temporary barriers were put up at the border
separating the Soviet sector from West Berlin, and the asphalt and cobblestones on the
connecting roads were ripped up. Police and transport police units, along with members of
‘workers’ militias,’ stood guard and turned away all traffic at the sector boundaries
Over the next few days and weeks, the coils of barbed wire strung along the border to West
Berlin were replaced by a wall of concrete slabs and hollow blocks. This was built by East
Berlin construction workers under the close scrutiny of GDR border guards.
[From: https://www.berlin.de/mauer/geschichte/index.en.html. Accessed on 15 August 2015]
SOURCE 1B
This photograph shows the construction of the Berlin Wall, 18 August 1961 under orders
from the GDR head of state Walter Ulbricht. The photographer is unknown.
[From:http://www.cvce.eu/en/obj/construction_of_the_berlin_wall_18_august_1961-en75b76c23-e060-4e62-ace1-c053a024b434.html. Accessed on 15 August 2015]
SOURCE 1C
This extract from the Cold War International History Project by H Harrison that focuses on
the role that Walter Ulbricht played in the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961.
As Khrushchev later told the West German ambassador to Moscow, Hans Kroll, ‘The Wall
was ordered by me due to Ulbricht’s pressing wish.’ Similarly, General Anatoly Grigorevitsch
Mereshchko, deputy director of the operational department of the Group of Soviet Forces in
Germany, one of the officials in charge of the final coordinated plan to close the border,
recently remembered: ‘Carrying out the job was easier, since Ulbricht had already asked
Khrushchev many times to seal the border. But for a long time Khrushchev didn’t want to do
this’.
Since at least January 1961, the East German leaders had been formulating detailed plans
for sealing the border once they obtained Soviet permission. Indeed, ever since the border
between East and West Germany was fortified by the Soviets and East Germans in the
summer of 1952, leaving Berlin as the only place for free movement between East and West
within Germany, Ulbricht sought to close off the last ‘loophole’ in Berlin.
Ulbricht succeeded in manoeuvring the Soviets into a corner whereby if they wanted to save
their East German communist ally, they would need to close the border as he had been
pushing for. But Ulbricht could not do this alone and needed Soviet military help in the
background to deter both the East German people and the Western Allies from any
significant moves to interfere with ‘Operation Rose’ and the building of the Berlin Wall.
Achieving this deterrent effect was indeed one of the main motivations for convening the
Warsaw Pact leaders in Moscow in early August.
[From: http://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/new-evidence-the-building-the-berlin-wall.
Accessed on 15 August 2015]
SOURCE 1D
This speech by J F Kennedy was delivered on the Randolph Platz, Berlin, 26 June 1963 and
is entitled ‘I am a Berliner.’ The speech criticised the East German government for the
construction of the Berlin Wall.
…There are many people in the world who really don't understand, or say they don't, what is
the great issue between the free world and the Communist world. Let them come to Berlin.
There are some who say that communism is the wave of the future. Let them come to Berlin.
And there are some who say in Europe and elsewhere we can work with the Communists.
Let them come to Berlin. And there are even a few who say that it is true that communism is
an evil system, but it permits us to make economic progress. Lass' sie nach Berlin kommen.
Let them come to Berlin.
Freedom has many difficulties and democracy is not perfect, but we have never had to put a
wall up to keep our people in, to prevent them from leaving us. I want to say, on behalf of my
countrymen, who live many miles away on the other side of the Atlantic, who are far distant
from you, that they take the greatest pride that they have been able to share with you, even
from a distance, the story of the last 18 years. I know of no town, no city, that has been
besieged for 18 years that still lives with the vitality and the force, and the hope and the
determination of the city of West Berlin. While the wall is the most obvious and vivid
demonstration of the failures of the Communist system, for all the world to see, we take no
satisfaction in it, for it is, as your Mayor has said, an offense not only against history but an
offense against humanity, separating families, dividing husbands and wives and brothers
and sisters, and dividing a people who wish to be joined together.
[From: Speeches That Changed The World by S S Montefiore]
QUESTION 2:
HOW DID FOREIGN INTERVENTION HEIGHTEN COLD WAR
TENSIONS IN ANGOLA BETWEEN 1974 AND 1976?
SOURCE 2A
This source explains the reasons for the involvement of foreign countries in Angola
during the 1970s.
The nationalist movements in Angola have been supported from the beginning by the
superpowers and this state of affairs continued after the country gained independence. The
Soviet bloc, including Cuba, always supported the MPLA, while the Western bloc, particularly
the United States, has given its support to the FNLA and UNITA. The competition between the
two blocs in Angola was clearly based on ideological and strategic interests.
The former US Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, placed the Soviet bloc's intervention in
Angola in the context of USA-USSR rivalry (competition) throughout the world and blamed the
Kremlin for having both initiated and escalated the crisis there. He justified US intervention on
the grounds that its purpose was to normalise the situation. The Western powers consequently
undertook to provide the FNLA and UNITA guerrillas with aid equal to that received by the
MPLA from the USSR. The Soviets and Cubans for their part justified their support for Angola
and their presence in the country on the grounds that the Angolan people had requested their
protection against imperialist aggression. Since then other countries have allowed themselves
to become involved in the Angolan crisis, such as China, to some extent, and South Africa,
which has intervened directly in the civil war on the side of UNITA on the pretext of defending
Namibia against SWAPO guerrillas operating from Angolan territory and preventing Marxism
from making inroads in the region ...
... But apart from these ideological motivations, the deposits of uranium and oil in Angola are
not unconnected with the interest taken in that country by foreign powers. The United States,
which had major economic interests in Zaïre, Namibia and South Africa, saw the USSR's bid to
play a role in Angola as a threat to its economic interests in the region. Finally, at the strategic
level, Angola is in a very advantageous position in many respects. Its coast and harbours on
the Atlantic Ocean are of a great interest to maritime (naval) powers in both the NATO and
Warsaw Pact groups of countries.
[From General History of Africa, Vol. VIII: Africa Since 1935 by A
Mazrui (ed.)]
SOURCE 2B
This extract has been taken from the website of the United States of America's Department
of State. It outlines the reasons for the involvement of the USA and other countries in Angola
in the 1970s.
The MPLA also had long-established relations with Fidel Castro's Cuba. Before
11 November 1975 the MPLA had negotiated with Castro for Cuban assistance. At the same
time, UNITA, which enjoyed US support, approached the apartheid government in South Africa
for military reinforcement. Pretoria, with the aim to end the use of Angola as a base for rebels
fighting for the independence of South Africa-occupied Namibia, contributed forces that
entered southern Angola in October and made rapid progress toward the capital. In response,
Castro sent Cuban Special Forces to halt the South African advance and succeeded in
drawing attention to the fact that the United States had provided support to a group that now
accepted assistance from an apartheid government.
The US government had encouraged the South African intervention, but preferred to downplay
its connection with the apartheid regime. However, once Pretoria's involvement became widely
known, the Chinese withdrew its advisers from the region, and the Ford administration was
faced with domestic (internal) resistance to the US role in the Angolan conflict. President
Gerald Ford had requested Congressional approval for more money to fund the operation in
Angola. However, many members of Congress were wary of intervening abroad after the
struggle in Vietnam, others wished to avoid the South African connection, and still others did
not believe the issue was important. In the end, Congress rejected the President's request for
additional funds. South Africa withdrew its forces in the spring of 1976 and the MPLA
remained as the official government of Angola.
[From http://history.state.gov/milestones/1969-1976/angola.
Accessed on 15 September 2014.]
SOURCE 2C
The following delivery (extract) by the I Wor Kuen (an Asian American revolutionary
organisation) was made (delivered) on behalf of the Coalition for Angolan SelfDetermination. The I Wor Kuen was established in New York in 1969 and was inspired by
the Chinese revolution. It focused on the Soviet and American aggression in Angola but was
supportive of China's role.
The People's Republic of China also supported the unity of the three liberation movements –
asserting that existing differences among them could only be resolved without foreign
interference. China concretely implemented this by aiding all three liberation movements in
their just struggle against the Portuguese up until the Nakura agreement in June 1975. At this
time, with the agreement to form a coalition government signed, the affairs of Angola were
seen by China as an internal matter for the Angolan people themselves to determine. China
indicated that henceforth it would provide assistance to a coalition government only.
... the Soviet Union has exposed its true nature. Under its socialist cover, it is functioning as an
imperialist power. It is betraying the genuine desires of the Angolan people and contending
with the US in seeking to grab up and exploit the natural resources of Angola, exert control
over the destiny of the Angolan people and the rest of southern Africa, and establish a military
presence in the southern Atlantic.
... the other superpower, the United States, has also played a strong role in undermining the
Angolan people's fight for independence and self-determination ... the US had tried to gain
another foothold in the Angolan situation by sending aid both overtly (openly) and secretly
through the CIA and through other means, to forces which had been incited to civil war. By
further exploiting the differences between the liberation movements and raising the cry of 'fight
Communism', the US attempted to subvert (undermine) the Angolans' struggle for selfdetermination and gain neo-colonialist control over Angola. A number of US-based multinational corporations, like Gulf Oil, have large operations in Angola and after years of
exploiting the natural resources, such as oil in the northern Cabinda region, they are not about
to give them up without a fight.
[From http://www.marxist.org/history/erol/ncm-3/iwk-angola.htm.
Accessed on 20 September 2014.]
SOURCE 2D
This cartoon by Bob Connolly was published in the Rand Daily Mail on 27 November 1975. It
was entitled 'Knuckle-rapping' and depicts Henry Kissinger
(the US Secretary of State)
slapping the Russian hand with an 'olive branch'.
KISSINGER
[From Conflicting Missions – Havana, Washington, Pretoria by Piero Gleijeses]
RUSSIAN GRIP IN AFRICA
QUESTION 3:
HOW DID WHITE CONSERVATIVE AMERICANS RESIST THE
DESEGREGATION OF CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL IN LITTLE
ROCK?
SOURCE 3A
The source below entitled ‘Episode 2: Fighting Back’ focuses on the strategies that the Civil
Rights Movement employed to implement desegregation of schools as required by United
States Law.
By the early 1950s, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
(NAACP) had decided to undermine the ‘separate but equal’ doctrine through legal
challenges to educational segregation in US public schools, primarily because the gaps
between white and black educational institutions were so glaring. The NAACP legal team
argued to the US Supreme Court that ‘separate but equal’ violated the Fourteenth
Amendment clause, which states that the freedoms and privileges of US citizens must be
equally protected. In the Brown v. Board of Education ruling, the US Supreme Court
declared the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ unconstitutional on the grounds that it provided
inferior education to African-Americans. The landmark decision initiated the process that
dismantled the legal segregation of schools in America…
In 1955, Virgil Blossom, the Little Rock, Arkansas school superintendent, announced a plan
to integrate the state’s schools gradually, beginning with Little Rock Central High School.
The school board selected nine outstanding black students to be the first to attend the allwhite institution. Among the nine was 15 year-old Elizabeth Eckford.
[From: http://facinghistory.org/sites/default/files/02/FightingBack_1957-1962.pdf.
Accessed on 15 August 2015]
SOURCE 3B
This extract is part of a paper entitled ‘The White Citizens’ Council and Resistance to School
Desegregation in Arkansas’ by N R McMillen that focuses on the methods that conservative
whites used to stop desegregation of schools in Arkansas.
The opening salvo in the campaign to prevent desegregation at Central High came when the
Capital Citizen’s Council (CCC) of Little Rock president, Robert E. Brown, addressed an
open letter to Governor Faubus in the late spring of 1957. Reminding Faubus that Gov. Allan
Shivers had successfully flouted (ignored) a federal court order, and prevented
desegregation in Mansfield, Texas, Brown observed that ‘in order to preserve domestic
tranquillity’ (peace) he could block the school board’s program.‘ As the sovereign head of a
state,’ Brown added, ‘you are immune to federal court orders.’
But, the governor was apparently unmoved. As late as mid-July, he indicated that he would
have nothing to do with defiance. ‘Everyone knows no state law supersedes a federal law,’
he told a press conference. ‘If anyone expects me to try to use them to supersede federal
laws they are wrong.’ Throughout the summer the CCC’s efforts to sabotage the
desegregation plan continued. Whether creating disorders at open meetings of the school
board, organizing letter-writing campaigns to urge the governor to invoke (appeal for) police
powers, or urging defiance through an avalanche of propaganda, the organization managed
to keep the sensitive issue before the public’s eye.
But however moderate his previous record, Faubus chose to bend with the current of racial
extremism. Perhaps to his own consternation, he was swept along into the very whirlwind of
massive resistance. Having deployed the National Guard to block the execution of a federal
mandate, the governor flirted with armed rebellion for seventeen days. Only after a series of
complicated manoeuvres involving President Dwight David Eisenhower, the Department of
Justice, and a federal judge, and the issuance (issuing) of a federal injunction against further
obstruction did he withdraw the guard on September 20.
[From: http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/25999733/white-citizens-councilresistanceSchool-desegregation-arkansas. Accessed on 15 August 2015]
SOURCE 3C
This source by LC Bates gave insight to the Little Rock, Central High School struggle to
desegregate. Bates was an activist in Arkansas who fought for the equality of Black
Americans
On September 20, Faubus unexpectedly ordered the National Guard to withdraw, which left
black students in the middle of a war zone. In the frenzy of hatred, a mob of more than five
hundred whites swarmed past police barricades and invaded the school, smashing windows,
breaking down doors, beating any blacks in their path, and nearly capturing the nine
students. The savage brutality of the mob, whose members, once they realized the students
had escaped, took out their fury on any African-American they encountered, stunned and
appalled the nation and the world. Realizing that he could no longer equivocate (beat around
the bush) - that the integrity of the Constitution was at stake, not to mention the integrity of
his administration, President Eisenhower ordered paratroopers from the Army’s elite 102st
Airborne Division to take control of the high school. Protected by the paratroopers, the nine
black teenagers finally became students at Central, and the crisis seemed to be over. But it
had not ended for the students, who were subjected to unrelenting intimidation and
harassment from white students and their parents.
[From: Freedom’s Daughters by L Olson]
SOURCE 3D
U.S. Troops escort African American students from Central High School, Little Rock,
Arkansas, October 3, 1957: On September 24, Little Rock Mayor Woodrow Mann sent a
special request for federal assistance to President Dwight Eisenhower. The following day
nine African American students entered Central under the protection of members of the
101st Airborne Division of the U. S. Army, shown here.
http://www.brownvboard.net/resources/hs/hs_05a06.html, accessed September 2015