The Berlin Wall symbolized the physical border in Europe after World War II.
Along with the separate and much longer Inner German border -LRB- IGB -RRB- , 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 -LRB- the Soviet Union and its satellite states -RRB- and powers in the Western Bloc -LRB- the United States , its NATO allies and others -RRB-.
