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) architect of Germany's defeat. Denise J. Youngblood wrote that shortly afterwards, there remained only three kinds of war heroes: "the dead, the maimed and Stalin." Mikheil Chiaureli, Stalin's favourite director, and writer Pyotr Pavlenko have already collaborated to create the 1946 personality cult picture "The Vow". The Soviet Minister of Cinema, Ivan Bolshakov, instructed them both to begin work on "The Fall of Berlin" shortly after the release of "The Vow" in July 1946. The film was conceived as the Mosfilm studio's gift to Stalin for his official 70th birthday, which was to be held on 21 December 1949. "The