I just went into a deep dive about the Berlin Wall and find the entire ordeal incredibly fascinating. Looking at maps from Google images depicting exactly where the Berlin Wall was built, it appears the wall encapsulated all of West Berlin. Am I confusing the boarder of West Berlin as part of the wall? In some of the maps, it looks pretty evident that the wall enclosed all of West Berlin, in others, it’s a bit ambiguous because the map maker will use a bold, red stroke to delineate the portion of the wall that halves Berlin and a black, bold stoke to notate the permitter of West Berlin / potentially the wall...? The rest of East Berlin’s perimeter is rendered with a typically weighted, black stoke. Hence, my confusion.

If I’m not misunderstanding the map, and West Berlin was completely enclosed, why would France, US and Britain, each of whom had their own territories meet in West Berlin, allow the wall to be built in their respective territories? I understand allowing the wall to be built between Western and Eastern Berlin, and I even understand turning a blind eye to the fact that some of the sections of the wall very much encroached into West Berlin, but to enter that deep into Allied controlled territory to build a wall the Allies didn’t support seems inconceivable.

My final question is, assuming West Berlin was fully closed off, if Berlin was the easiest egress point for defecting East Germans, wouldn’t building the wall to encapsulate East Berlin be more effective in the Soviets pursuit of preventing defection? Thanks ya’ll!

EDIT: To get a head of a misnomer I repeatedly make, I incorrectly refer to the Western Powers controlling West Berlin as “Allies,” implying the Soviet Union were not Allies. I apologize for any confusion this has caused.