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The Berlin Wall was a key site of contestation between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic in their Cold War struggle over political legitimacy. On both sides, the Wall became a tool in intense publicity battles aimed at building legitimacy and collective identity at home, and undermining them in the other Germany. The public perceptions and politicized uses of the barrier evolved through stages that reflected the relative fortunes of the two German states, moving gradually from extensive East-West parallels in the early 1960s toward a growing divergence by the 1970s and 1980s, which became increasingly indicative of East Germany's weakness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Berlin Wall was built three times: in 1961, in the mid 1960s, and again from the mid 1970s onwards. This article attempts to interpret each manifestation as political architecture providing insights into the mindset and intentions of those who built it. Each phase of the Wall had a different rationale, beyond the straightforward purpose of stopping the citizens of East Germany from leaving their own country and forcing them to suffer under communist rule. The deliberately brutal-looking first Wall was a propaganda construct not originally intended to exist for more than a few months. The functional but dreary Wall of the mid 60s was calculated to have a longer lifespan, but within few years it, too, became an embarrassment for the East German rulers. Yearning for international recognition, they demanded a smoother-looking, better designed Wall-supporting their fiction that this was "a national border like any other." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]