BUILDERS AND BREAKERS

WALTER ULBRICHT

GERMAN 1893-1973

As the Secretary of the SED (the Socialist Unity Party), Ulbricht was the head of the German Democratic Republic. Frustrated with the hundreds of citizens who were fleeing daily to the West from the GDR through Berlin, he discussed closing the city’s Western borders with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. Despite this, Ulbricht famously denied that a wall was going to be built in Berlin at a press conference on 15 June 1961, just two months before construction began. After 21 years in power, the failure of his economic policies sparked Ulbricht’s downfall and he was forced to retire as leader