Editing West Berlin (section)

==Period following the building of the Berlin Wall==
[[File:JFK speech lch bin ein berliner 1.jpg|thumb|right|President [[John F. Kennedy]] addressing the people of West Berlin from [[Rathaus Schöneberg]] on Rudolf-Wilde-Platz (today's John-F.-Kennedy-Platz), 26 June 1963]]
[[File:President Ronald Reagan making his Berlin Wall speech.jpg|thumb|right|President [[Ronald Reagan|Reagan]] speaking in front of the [[Brandenburg Gate]] giving the "[[Tear down this wall!]]" speech in 1987]]

After the Berlin Wall was constructed in 1961, West German Chancellor [[Konrad Adenauer]] suggested to U.S. President [[John F. Kennedy]] that the United States propose a swap of West Berlin with [[Thuringia]] and parts of [[Saxony]] and [[Mecklenburg-Vorpommern|Mecklenburg]]; the city's population would have been relocated to West Germany.<ref name="wiegrefe20110815">{{cite news |url=http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/secret-documents-released-adenauer-wanted-to-swap-west-berlin-for-parts-of-gdr-a-780385.html |title=Secret Documents Released: Adenauer Wanted to Swap West Berlin for Parts of GDR |work=Der Spiegel |date=15 August 2011 |access-date=7 November 2014 |author=Wiegrefe, Klaus |archive-date=7 November 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141107200821/http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/secret-documents-released-adenauer-wanted-to-swap-west-berlin-for-parts-of-gdr-a-780385.html |url-status=live }}</ref> Adenauer did not believe that the Soviets would accept the offer because East Germany would lose important industry, but hoped that making the proposal would reduce tensions between the western and eastern blocs, and perhaps hurt relations between the USSR and East Germany if they disagreed on accepting the offer.<ref name="lepoint20110814">{{Cite news |url=https://www.lepoint.fr/monde/berlin-aurait-pu-etre-vendue-a-l-est-14-08-2011-1362633_24.php |title=Berlin aurait pu être vendue à l'Est |date=14 August 2011 |work=Le Point |access-date=25 April 2020 |agency=AFP source |language=fr |archive-date=7 August 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200807100754/https://www.lepoint.fr/monde/berlin-aurait-pu-etre-vendue-a-l-est-14-08-2011-1362633_24.php |url-status=live }}</ref> While the Kennedy administration seriously considered the idea, it did not make the proposal to the Soviet Union.{{r|wiegrefe20110815}}

NATO also took an increased interest in the specific issue related to West Berlin, and drafted plans to ensure to defend the city against a possible attack from the East.<ref>{{cite web |last1=NATO Planning for Berlin Emergency |title=Instructions to NATO Military Authorities |url=http://archives.nato.int/nato-planning-for-berlin-emergency-instructions-to-nato-military-authorities-approved-by-council-on-25th-october-1961;isad |website=NATO Archives Online|access-date=26 March 2017 |archive-date=26 March 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170326231316/http://archives.nato.int/nato-planning-for-berlin-emergency-instructions-to-nato-military-authorities-approved-by-council-on-25th-october-1961;isad |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/declassified_136086.htm |title= Declassified: Berlin divided |publisher=North Atlantic Treaty Organization |access-date=26 March 2017 |archive-date=26 March 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170326231239/http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/declassified_136086.htm |url-status=live }}</ref> A tripartite planning group known as [[LIVE OAK]], working together with NATO, was entrusted with potential military responses to any crisis.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Code Name |title=LIVE OAK |url=https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/declassified_136184.htm |website=NATO|access-date=24 August 2018 |archive-date=25 August 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180825073957/https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/declassified_136184.htm |url-status=live }}</ref>

On 26 June 1963, President Kennedy visited West Berlin. On his triumphant tour, cheered by hundred of thousands of West Berliners in the streets, he stopped at the Congress Hall, near the [[Brandenburg Gate]], and at [[Checkpoint Charlie]], before delivering at West Berlin's city hall a speech, which became famous for its phrase "{{lang|de|[[Ich bin ein Berliner]]}}" and a hallmark of America's solidarity with the city.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Daum |first=Andreas|author-link=Andreas Daum |title=Kennedy in Berlin |location=New York |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2008 |pages=125‒64}}</ref>

The [[Four Power Agreement on Berlin]] (September 1971) and the [[Transit Agreement (1972)|Transit Agreement]] (May 1972) helped to significantly ease tensions over the status of West Berlin. While many restrictions remained in place, it also made it easier for West Berliners to travel to East Germany and it simplified the regulations for Germans travelling along the [[autobahn]] transit routes.

At the Brandenburg Gate in 1987, U.S. President [[Ronald Reagan]] provided a challenge to the then Soviet leader:
<blockquote>General Secretary [[Mikhail Gorbachev|Gorbachev]], if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, [[tear down this wall!]]<ref>{{cite web |title=Ronald Reagan speech, Tear Down This Wall |url=http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/speeches/reagan_berlin.htm |publisher=USAF Air University |access-date=27 October 2015 |archive-date=17 July 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190717184114/http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/speeches/reagan_berlin.htm |url-status=dead }}</ref></blockquote>

On 9 November 1989, the Wall was opened, and the two parts of the city were once again physically—though at this point not legally—united. The [[Two Plus Four Treaty]], signed by the two German states and the four wartime allies, paved the way for [[German reunification]] and an end to the Western Allies' occupation of West Berlin. On 3 October 1990—the day Germany was officially reunified—East and West Berlin formally reunited as the city of Berlin, which then joined the enlarged Federal Republic as a city-state along the lines of the existing West German city-states of [[Bremen]] and [[Hamburg]]. [[Walter Momper]], the mayor of West Berlin, became the first mayor of the reunified city in the interim. City-wide elections in December 1990 resulted in the first "all Berlin" mayor being elected to take office in January 1991, with the separate offices of mayors in East and West Berlin expiring by that time, and [[Eberhard Diepgen]] (a former mayor of West Berlin) became the first elected mayor of a reunited Berlin.<ref>[https://www.nytimes.com/1990/12/01/world/berlin-mayoral-contest-has-many-uncertainties.html Berlin Mayoral Contest Has Many Uncertainties] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190617212414/https://www.nytimes.com/1990/12/01/world/berlin-mayoral-contest-has-many-uncertainties.html |date=17 June 2019 }}, ''[[The New York Times]]'', 1 December 1990</ref>