The Cold War
Meanwhile, friction between the Western Allies and Soviets was steadily rising. The Soviets even took to marking out their border by stationing armed soldiers along it at intervals of a few metres, day and night, in all weathers. Since there was not, as yet, a fixed marker, the borders were prone to abuse, which eventually resulted (in August 1948), in white lines in luminous paint appearing across roads and even through ruined buildings to try to deter the Soviets from making unauthorised incursions into the American and British zones. These measures were only partially successful: after further skirmishes in which shots were fired, barbed wire entanglements were stretched across some roads, a foretaste of things to come.
Read more about this topic: Potsdamer Platz
Famous quotes containing the words cold and/or war:
““Are you cold too, poor Pleiads,
This frosty night?”
“Yes, and so are the Hyads:
See us cuddle and hug,” says the Pleiads,
“All six in a ring: it keeps us warm:
We huddle together like birds in a storm:”
—Robert Graves (1895–1985)
“Long accustomed to the use of European manufactures, [the Cherokee Indians] are as incapable of returning to their habits of skins and furs as we are, and find their wants the less tolerable as they are occasioned by a war [the American Revolution] the event of which is scarcely interesting to them.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)