The Berlin Wall, a symbol of the Cold War, was a wall that divided Berlin into East and West from 1961 to 1989. The wall was built by the German Democratic Republic (GDR) to prevent its citizens from defecting to the West. It consisted of concrete walls, guard towers, and barbed wire. The Wall was a physical manifestation of the Iron Curtain that separated communist Eastern Europe from the democratic West. The fall of the Wall on November 9, 1989 marked the end of the Cold War and paved the way for the reunification of Germany.