With the aim of preventing East Germans from seeking asylum in the West, the East German government in 1961 began constructing a system of concrete and barbed-wire barriers between East and West Berlin. This endured for nearly thirty years, a symbol not only of the division of Germany but of the larger conflict between the Communist and non-Communist worlds. The Wall ceased to be a barrier when East Germany ended restrictions on emigration in November 1989. The Wall was largely dismantled in the year preceding the reunification of Germany. ....