Berlin 1961 (97 page)

August 21. West Germany’s largest newspaper,
Bild
, heralds the arrival of symbolic troop reinforcements from the 18th Infantry, 1st Battle Group. (
National Archives
)

August 22. Adenauer finally appears in Berlin nine days after the border closes, to much criticism because of the delay. (
AP Photo/Library of Congress
)

Walter Ulbricht speaks to factory militia men to thank them for protecting his country against imperialist subterfuge. (
AP Photo/Library of Congress
)

The wall grows. East Berlin workmen pile up the blocks. (
AP Photo/Library of Congress
)

A West German stands on a car to wave over the wall. (
UPI/Library of Congress
)

West Berliners stand on ladders and wave to loved ones on the other side. (
USIS/National Archives
)

Great escapes: East German border guard Conrad Schumann discards his rifle while leaping over barbed wire to freedom. (
USIS/National Archives
)

An elderly East Berlin woman is lowered from a window of her building, which rested in the communist zone, to freedom in West Berlin, with the help of neighbors and West Berlin firemen. (
UPI/National Archives
)

General Lucius Clay, hero of the 1948 Berlin Airlift. (
AP Photo/Library of Congress
)

September 19. An honor guard of U.S. soldiers and West Berlin police greets Clay, Kennedy’s special representative to Berlin, upon his arrival at Tempelhof Airport. (
AP Photo/Werner Kreusch
)

September 24. Kennedy warns the UN of the dangers of nuclear war facing the world, just as he is approving revised first-strike nuclear plans. (
Cecil Stoughton/JFK Library
)

October 18. Khrushchev shocks the world by announcing at the 22nd October Party Congress that he will explode the largest nuclear test bomb in history. (
ITAR-TASS/Sovfoto
)