The Berlin Wall, Germany

A list of famous walls in Europe wouldn’t be complete without mentioning the Berlin Wall, a momentous symbol of the Cold War. The Berlin Wall was built in 1961 by the Communist government of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) and divided East Berlin from West Berlin, enclosing all of the part of city belonging to the Allies. Supposedly the wall was designed to keep Western ‘fascists’ from entering East Germany but in reality the wall served to slow the mass defections of citizens from East to West. The wall eventually came down in 1989, though sections of it remain as a memorial. Visitors to Berlin can see the longest surviving section of the wall at the East Side Gallery, as well as visiting Checkpoint Charlie and other key Cold War sites around the city.