The famous wall that separated East and West Berlin during the Cold War was the Berlin Wall. Erected in 1961, the wall became a symbol of the ideological divide between the Western capitalist nations, led by the United States, and the Eastern communist bloc, led by the Soviet Union. It physically and politically separated East Berlin from West Berlin, restricting the movement of people and suppressing dissent against the East German government. The wall fell on November 9, 1989, marking the end of the Cold War and an important step towards the reunification of Germany and the liberation of Eastern Europe from communism.