Why was the Berlin Wall erected in Berlin?

Question

I understand the divide between East and West, but why was the Wall erected specifically in Berlin?

In: Other

Answer 1

The main thing to realise is that because Berlin was the capital, it was also divided into East and West occupation zones. So West Berlin was occupied by the western allies and treated as an outpost of west Germany, even though it was a 200km east of the main border and completely surrounded by Soviet occupied East Germany.

So the Soviet-backed communist East Germans had a pocket of western capitalist territory smack bang in the middle of their capital city. In the beginning people could literally just walk a couple of blocks across town to western territory and they could escape the DDR to the enemy west.

So the soviets built a wall around West Berlin, not to keep west Berliners in, but to keep the East Germans out.