Aim for FiveEuropean History

Short-answer question (SAQ)

Reagan at the Brandenburg Gate

  • Unit 9
  • 3 points
  • About 13 minutes

You read one source and answer three short parts (A, B and C) about it, each in a few sentences. Each part asks you to describe or explain something about the source or the history around it. On the exam: 3 required questions in 40 minutes (Section I, Part B), 20% of the score. Starting May 2027 every SAQ has a source: question 1 a secondary text, question 2 a primary text, question 3 a non-text source such as an image, map or chart.

The question and its sources

Use the passage below to answer all parts of the question that follows.

Passage

Behind me stands a wall that encircles the free sectors of this city, part of a vast system of barriers that divides the entire continent of Europe. From the Baltic, south, those barriers cut across Germany in a gash of barbed wire, concrete, dog runs, and guardtowers. . . . Standing before the Brandenburg Gate, every man is a German, separated from his fellow men. Every man is a Berliner, forced to look upon a scar.

And now the Soviets themselves may, in a limited way, be coming to understand the importance of freedom. We hear much from Moscow about a new policy of reform and openness. Some political prisoners have been released. Certain foreign news broadcasts are no longer being jammed. Some economic enterprises have been permitted to operate with greater freedom from state control. Are these the beginnings of profound changes in the Soviet state? Or are they token gestures, intended to raise false hopes in the West, or to strengthen the Soviet system without changing it? . . .

General Secretary 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!

Source: Ronald Reagan, president of the United States, "Remarks on East-West Relations at the Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin," June 12, 1987. Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Ronald Reagan, 1987, Book I (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1989), pp. 634–638. A U.S. government work.

Suggested time: 13 minutes

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Part (a)

1 point

Describe ONE purpose of Reagan's speech.

0 / 2,500 characters

Part (b)

1 point

Explain how ONE development in the Soviet Union in the 1980s relates to Reagan's reference to "a new policy of reform and openness."

0 / 2,500 characters

Part (c)

1 point

Explain ONE development in the period 1989–1991 that changed the situation Reagan describes in Berlin and Germany.

0 / 2,500 characters

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