The Berlin Wall

Did the United States provoke the Eastern German government (under the power of Khrushchev in the Soviet Union) into constructing the Berlin Wall? Or was the Soviet Union just extremely paranoid and sensitive after WWII and this paranoia caused them to overreact and take extreme measures in literally dividing Eastern Europe from Western Europe? A combination of these two?

When I was doing the reading, the paragraph that covered the Berlin Wall seemed to be a simplified version of a seemingly complex series of events. Given, all that I know of the construction of the Berlin Wall is what is in the textbook, I was still given the impression that there was a lot of manipulation going on, particularly on the part of Western Europe in order to drive the Soviet Union into a state of panic which materialized itself in the extreme measure of building the Berlin Wall. I have to agree with Danielle in that the Berlin Wall is the almost a materialization of the previously existing divide between Eastern and Western Europe; communism and democracy.

 However, was the construction of this wall truly necessary? NATO had put "battlefield nuclear weapons in West Germany" after already being aware of the Khrushchev's desire to maintain "peaceful coexistence" with the West (991). While I understand that there was a huge amount of fear in Western Europe that communism would bleed into its borders and there was a fair amount of uncertainty in the trustworthiness of the Soviet Union and better safe than sorry, I can't help but wonder what purpose the placement of weaponry in West Germany served. Was it sincerely for defense, was it meant to be a fear tactic, a demonstration of Western power, or all of these?