Timeline
From 1945 to the reunification of Germany

May 1945
The Red Army marches into Berlin and accepts Germany's surrender. The city is divided into separate sectors controlled by Britain, France, the U.S. and the Soviet Union.

June 1948-May 1949
Amid mounting tensions between the new superpowers, the Soviets blockade West Berlin. Because it's an island inside communist-controlled East Germany, the Western allies keep the city alive with a continuous airlift of supplies.

1952
East Germany closes its borders with West Germany, except in Berlin.

June 1953
East Berliners take to the streets in a mass uprising against the communist government. The revolt is crushed with the help of Soviet tanks, leaving at least 40 people dead.

August 1961
East Germany seals Berlin's borders, and begins building the wall. It begins as a barbed wire fence, grows into a simple concrete wall and gradually evolves into an elaborate series of walls and fences, patrolled by heavily armed guards with dogs and peppered with automatically triggered weapons, all designed to stop East Germans from leaving. More than 200 people were killed trying to beat the wall.

June 1963
President Kennedy visits the wall, declaring himself a "Berliner" and vowing to defend the residents of the city's Western sector.

May 1973
East Germany and West Germany establish formal diplomatic ties.

May-September 1989
Hungary, in the midst of its own breakup with the Soviet Union, opens its borders with Austria, which allows East Germans to begin leaving the Eastern Bloc. East Germans begin taking refuge in West German embassies in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. Then, on September 10, Hungary stops enforcing East German visa restrictions, throwing open its borders. In the first three days, 15,000 East Germans pass through en route to West Germany.

September-October 1989
In the face of weekly pro-democracy demonstrations that begin in the city of Leipzig, Erich Honecker is forced to resign and is replaced as communist leader by professed reformist Egon Krenz.

November 4, 1989
An anticommunist demonstration in East Berlin draws 1 million people, prompting the East German government to resign three days later.

November 9, 1989
The Berlin Wall is breached in a riotous carnival of freedom.

December 1989
Chancellor Helmut Kohl begins reunification talks with new East German leader Hans Modrow.

February 1990
The Soviets, Britain, France and the U.S. approve reunification.

March 18, 1990
In free elections, East Germans overwhelmingly approve reunification and a Western-style political and economic system. A formal treaty is signed in May.

October 3, 1990
Germany is formally reunited.