JoinProfessor Patrick Major as he marks the 60th anniversary of the construction of the Berlin Wall by exploring the crisis that followed.

On 13 August 1961, Berliners woke to find that work had begun on a physical border dividing their city. The ideological and political separation between the east and west of the city became a physical reality with the building of the Berlin Wall.

Sixty years on, Professor Patrick Major will discuss the crisis surrounding the construction of the wall. He will also consider the impact it had on the people of Berlin, the British Army who were stationed in the city, and the East German National People’s Army.

This event is part of a programme of events supporting our special exhibition, ‘Foe to Friend: The British Army in Germany since 1945’.

Patrick Major is a professor at the University of Reading. He specialises in the political, social and cultural history of divided Germany during the Cold War and has recently completed a project on the rise and fall of the Berlin Wall.

The Berlin Wall