Today Is...German Democratic Republic Formed

Regardless of your ideology, when you have to build a 5 meter high wall topped with gun turrets to keep people from escaping, you are on shaky ground which is exactly what the German Democratic Republic did after it announced they would do it to their part of the defeated Nazi Germany, what Winston Churchill referred to as the Iron Curtain.
With the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union (USSR) agreeing on dividing Germany into occupation zones, Stalin's Soviet section saw more than 3.5 million East Germans, 20% of the entire East German population, defecting from the East into West Berlin so built chain fences, walls, minefields
and other obstacles along the length of East Germany's western border with West Germany and a huge no man's land cleared to provide a clear line of fire at any escapees.
Under the Soviet rule, East Germany described itself as a socialist workers and peasants state and was run by the German Communist leaders backed by Soviet troops and made the teaching of Marxism–Leninism and the Russian language compulsory in schools in the GDR.
Housing, basic goods and services were heavily subsidized and set by central government and it did become the most successful economy in the Eastern Bloc and in a referendum 95% of East Germans voted to keep the wall although how viable a referendum is when the people asking the questions are heavilly armed is debatable.
The GDR ceased in 1989, Germany was unified and the Berlin Wall was pulled down and one of the first faces they saw was Baywatch actor and not very good singer David Hasselhoff who gave a concert on the Wall which led to call of 'ARRGHH...Errichtet die verdammte Mauer wieder!' or 'ARRGHH...Put that blooody wall back up!'