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Efforts
to find an answer to the German question are continued but a solution
remains as elusive as ever. President Kennedy meets with Mr. Khrushchev
in Vienna in early June 1961 but the positions of the two leaders,
particularly on Berlin, prove irreconcilable. A few days later,
Khrushchev announces that he will conclude a separate peace treaty
with East Germany which would end the West's right of access to
Berlin.
The following
month, he abandons a projected reduction in Soviet armed forces,
and announces a substantial increase in the defence budget. President
Kennedy responds by calling for a build-up of NATO forces. The Soviet
Union threatens to call up reserves.
The escalating
crisis results in large numbers of East Germans fleeing to the West.
In the first six months of 1961, the number rises to more than 103,000,
mostly young and skilled workers. During the night of 13 August,
the East Germans barricade the Soviet sector of Berlin and begin
building the Berlin Wall. This wall will divide Germany until it
is torn down in 1989.
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