The Berlin Wall symbolized the physical border in Europe after World War II.
Berlin Wall . Along with the separate and much longer Inner German border ( IGB ) , which demarcated the border between East and West Germany , it came to symbolize a physical marker of the `` Iron Curtain '' that separated Western Europe and the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War . The Cold War was a state of geopolitical tension after World War II between powers in the Eastern Bloc ( the Soviet Union and its satellite states ) and powers in the Western Bloc ( the United States , its NATO allies and others ) .