Communist threat to Berlin, Germany as Russia presses for a unified Communist Berlin. Traffic signal man demonstrates hand signals on street in west Berlin. View of citizens in West Berlin shopping and going to and from work among newly constructed buildings, improved roads, and wearing new fashions. Contrast is made with East Berlin where buildings still in ruin from World War 2 are shown, including on the famous Unter den Linden Boulevard. Troops march on road. Woman enters a building and writes on a note pad. East German civilians dig with spades at a construction site. The Western Powers get out of free Berlin uniting with the East Berlin under Red Rule. Social and economic differences during communist versus capitalist systems in Berlin.
U.S. propaganda piece about threats by communists against various European countries. The Czechoslovak coup and demonstrations. Czech citizens moving on a street in Czechoslovakia during a strike forcing conservative elements to resign from the cabinet. Scenes of police brutality and beatings against strikers. Communists take over the police. Czech President Edvard Benes with conservative politicians in a government building. Huge crowd on a street. Police clashing with crowd. Czech Prime Minister Klement Gottwald with officials. President Edvard Benes, facing possible civil war or invasion by the Soviet Union, accepts a Communist cabinet. He is seen signing documents to that effect on February 25, 1948. Other officials beside President Benes during the signing. View of the first President of Czechoslovakia Tomas Masaryk's son, Jan Masaryk, who remained the Foreign Minister, and did not agree to the new government. Two days later Jan Masaryk is discovered dead. The body of Jan Masaryk in a coffin. Edvard Benes, who resigned in June 1948 after refusing to sign the communist constitution, is seen walking slowly outside the Parliament using a cane. A guard saluting Benes. View of the body of Edvard Benes, who died in September 1948, laying in a coffin. Mourning citizens offering flowers and cry. Officials bearing the coffin. Shift several years later to street strikes in East Germany in 1953. People during a strike and riot in Poland in 1956. Russian tanks moving on a street and Soviet soldiers are seen. Elevated view of panic and Polish citizens fleeing soldiers. October 1956: Student demonstrators on street in Budapest Hungary during the Hungarian Uprising of 1956. Soviet Russian red star is toppled by crowds from a building roof in a sign of defiance. Russian troops respond with tanks on the streets in Hungary. Crowd fights back. Russians retreat. Crowd overwhelms local police. Imre Nagy, Prime Minister of Hungary, ascends steps. Hungarian crowd on streets burn communist books and papers. Russian tanks invade Hungary to crush revolt. Tanks fire guns on Hungarian street. Imre Nagy's execution announced June 17, 1958.
New government formed in East Germany after the defeat of Nazis in World War II. Early GDR (DDR) Communist Party meeting underway in East Germany in 1949. Attendees applaud as GDR President Wilhelm Pieck, leader of the party, is congratulated. Joseph Stalin reviews parade at Kremlin in Moscow. East German refugees fleeing to the West with their belongings in hand. East German military erecting fence posts for new wire fences to deter escape. Watch tower overlooking a border zone between East Germany and West Germany. Socialist meetings in small towns in East Germany. Townspeople marching through towns with party flags. Industry under communist rule, with men and women working at metal and coal factories and at railroads. Citizen soldiers, both men and women being trained and armed with rifles as local militia. They march in a parade with their arms. Children with Bows and arrows follow them. An archery contest for the children with Communist party leaders looking on in approval. A young East German girl shoots an arrow and hits the bulls eye on a target of Konrad Adenauer, leader of West Germany. Soviet military and tanks parade on streets of East Germany.
Russian troops march as Russia begins withdrawal of 41,000 troops from East Berlin, Germany, with an initial departure by 500 troops. Posters of two leaders on wall. German on a board. Russian soldiers board railroad train. Soldiers with flowers in hand. Train and obsolete T-34 tanks depart East Germany by rail.
A large number of refugees flee East Berlin under the regime of Communist rule and reach West Berlin, in Germany. A large number of refugees walk near Berlin Quadriga. Russian and East German soldiers guard the Berlin wall line of demarcation between East and West Berlin. Families communicate across the line and relatives weep. A young girl weeps as she views relatives across the divided east and west Germany. A wedding bride waves to her parents in East Germany. A woman (Frieda Schulz) is pulled at the same time from above by east German authorities, and by West German helpers from below as she jumps from the window of her home on Bernauer Strasse to escape into West Germany. Scenes of several successful escapes by east Germans through barbed wire at the border, as they reach the hands of waiting helpers in West Germany.
During mounting Berlin Crisis, view of map of Germany with separated East and West Germany. East Berlin refugees gathered and on streets with their luggage at Marienfeld Refugee Reception Center in West Berlin. They are among the last to escape East Berlin before Krushchev closes the border. Refugees in queue to be processed entering West Berlin. Old woman refugee smiles as she helps a young boy drink from a cup. Refugees at airport with their children to be flown to other cities in West Germany. They board plane and it takes off. People at railway station to see off their relatives as they flee East Germany. East German soldiers digging emplacements in roadway near Brandenburg Gate to erect blockade. They unload a truck filled with poles. Soldiers wire the border. People watch soldiers running barbed wire enclosing East Berlin territory; the beginning of the Berlin Wall. Willy Brandt, mayor of West Berlin, with others on street. Communist soldiers on the closed border. A Russian soldier on the East side of the road divided with barbed wire fence. Tanks and people on road.