The Berlin Wall was a guarded concrete barrier that encircled West Berlin of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) from 1961 to 1989, separating it from East Berlin and the German Democratic Republic (GDR). Construction of the Berlin Wall was commenced by the government of the GDR on 13 August 1961. It included guard towers placed along large concrete walls, accompanied by a wide area that contained anti-vehicle trenches, beds of nails and other defenses. The primary intention for the Wall's construction was to prevent East German citizens from fleeing to the West.
Walter Ernst Paul Ulbricht was a German communist politician. Ulbricht played a leading role in the creation of the Weimar-era Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and later in the early development and establishment of the German Democratic Republic. As the First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party from 1950 to 1971, he was the chief decision-maker in East Germany. From President Wilhelm Pieck's death in 1960 on, he was also the East German head of state until his own death in 1973. As the leader of a significant Communist satellite, Ulbricht had a degree of bargaining power with the Kremlin that he used effectively. For example, he demanded the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961 when the Kremlin was reluctant.
The Atlantic Council is an American think tank in the field of international affairs, favoring Atlanticism, founded in 1961. It manages sixteen regional centers and functional programs related to international security and global economic prosperity. It is headquartered in Washington, D.C. It is a member of the Atlantic Treaty Association.
The Daily Pennsylvanian, Inc. is the independent student media organization of the University of Pennsylvania. The DP, Inc. publishes The Daily Pennsylvanian newspaper, 34th Street Magazine, and Under the Button, as well as five newsletters: The Daily Pennsylvanian, The Weekly Roundup, The Toast, Quaker Nation, and Penn, Unbuttoned.
Paul Anthony Gigot is an American Pulitzer Prize–winning conservative political commentator and editor of the editorial pages for The Wall Street Journal. He is also the moderator of the public affairs television series Journal Editorial Report, a program reflecting the Journal's editorial views which airs on Fox News Channel.
Norman Pearlstine is an American editor and media executive. He previously held senior positions at the Los Angeles Times, Time Inc, Bloomberg L.P., Forbes and The Wall Street Journal.
The German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) is a non-partisan American public policy think tank that seeks to promote cooperation and understanding between North America and the European Union.
The Vienna summit was a summit meeting held on June 4, 1961, in Vienna, Austria, between President John F. Kennedy of the United States and First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev of the Soviet Union. The leaders of the two superpowers of the Cold War era discussed numerous issues in the relationship between their countries.
Matthew Rose is a British-born journalist for the Wall Street Journal in New York, where he is the enterprise editor.
John Christian Kornblum is an American diplomat and businessman. He entered the American Foreign Service in 1964. Over the next 35 years, he served at the State Department in Washington and in Europe. Since 2001, he has established himself as an investment banker and international business consultant. He lives in Berlin.
Amity Ruth Shlaes is an American conservative author, writer, and columnist. She writes about politics and economics from a classical liberal perspective. Shlaes has authored five books, including three New York Times Bestsellers. She currently chairs the board of trustees of the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation and serves as a Presidential Scholar at The King's College in New York City. She is a recipient of the Bastiat Prize and, more recently, the Bradley Prize.
Jeffrey Gedmin is an American scholar and author. He is a senior fellow at Georgetown University and at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue. He was president and CEO of the Legatum Institute in London from 2011 to 2014 and the former president of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty from 2007 to 2011.
Benjamin Zimmer is an American linguist, lexicographer, and language commentator. He is a language columnist for The Wall Street Journal and contributing editor for The Atlantic. He was formerly a language columnist for The Boston Globe and The New York Times Magazine, and editor of American dictionaries at Oxford University Press. Zimmer was also an executive editor of Vocabulary.com and VisualThesaurus.com.
The European Institute is a nonpartisan public policy organization dedicated to Transatlantic relations. The Institute was founded in 1989 and is based in Washington, D.C. It regularly hosts forums, roundtable discussions, and programs with political and business leaders from the U.S. and Europe. Additionally, the Institute publishes the e-journal European Affairs.
The Berlin Crisis of 1961 occurred between 4 June – 9 November 1961, and was the last major European politico-military incident of the Cold War about the occupational status of the German capital city, Berlin, and of post–World War II Germany. The Berlin Crisis started when the USSR issued an ultimatum demanding the withdrawal of all armed forces from Berlin, including the Western armed forces in West Berlin. The crisis culminated in the city's de facto partition with the East German construction of the Berlin Wall.
The AJC Transatlantic Institute is the Brussels-based office of the American Jewish Committee, a global advocacy organization. It was founded in February 2004 to strengthen ties between Europe and the United States.
Adi Ignatius is editor-in-chief of Harvard Business Review. He joined the magazine in January 2009.
Dávid Korányi is a chief advisor of city diplomacy for Gergely Karácsony, the mayor of Budapest. Prior to that he was a director of the Atlantic Council's Eurasian Energy Futures Initiative and deputy director of the Atlantic Council's Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center. In 2009 he was undersecretary of state, chief foreign policy, and national security advisor to the Prime Minister of the Republic of Hungary, Gordon Bajnai. He was a member of the Hungarian NATO Strategic Concept Special Advisory Group.
Pamela Meyer is an American author, certified fraud examiner, and entrepreneur. Described by Reader's Digest as "the nation's best known expert on lying," Meyer is the author of the 2010 book Liespotting: Proven Techniques to Detect Deception. Her 2011 TED talk, "How to Spot a Liar," has exceeded 31 million views and is one of the 20 most popular TED talks of all time.
