Berlin Wall a notable moment of the Cold War and a high point of the New Frontier. It was a great morale boost for West Berliners, who lived in an exclave deep inside East Germany and feared a possible East German occupation. In a speech at the Brandenburg Gate commemorating the 750th anniversary of Berlin on 12 June 1987, U.S. President Ronald Reagan challenged Mikhail Gorbachev, then the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, to tear down the Wall as a symbol of increasing freedom in the Eastern Bloc: In June 1989 the Hungarian government began dismantling the
The Fall of Berlin (film) the facts and contrary to historical truth." Following the speech, the film was banned altogether, and all of its copies were placed in the archives. However, it continued to be screened in the People's Republic of China, the leadership of which opposed Khrushchev's criticism of Stalin. The pro-Stalinist protesters in the March 1956 Georgian demonstrations included a request to hold showings of the film in their list of demands. Historian Nikolas Hüllbusch viewed "The Fall of Berlin" as a representation of Stalin's strengthening political power. He compared it to the first fiction film to feature the premier, the 1937 "Lenin