berlin blockade and airlift

• Flashpoints in Europe


  Significant confrontations between the superpowers in Europe
• The actions of the USSR in Eastern Europe


  The Berlin Blockade and Airlift, 1948-49
• More than two years after the end of the Second World War, the former Allies still had not agreed on the long-term future of Germany
• At the Allied conferences held at Yalta and Potsdam, it had been agreed that Germany would be divided into four zones, each to be controlled separately by the British, Americans, Soviets and French
• Berlin was also divided, but as it was located over 100 miles inside the Soviet zone, the Allies had to travel through the Soviet area to get to the city
• Different aims


  • The USSR wanted Germany to remain weak, since Germany had invaded them twice since 1914
  • The Western powers wanted Germany to recover so it could be both a barrier against the further spread of communism and an important part of European economic recovery
• Different economies


  • By 1948, the Western zones of Germany were on the road to economic recovery, mainly because of Marshall Aid
  • The same could not be said of the Soviet zone, during the same period the USSR had removed a significant amount of resources from the eastern zones to compensate for war damage
• A new currency


  1. In March 1948, the USA, Britain and France united the Western zones of Germany into a single economic unit (called "Trizonia") and in June 1948, the Allies decided to introduce a new currency, the Deutschmark, into the region

  2. Stalin was not consulted about this decision and was unhappy about it
• Even worse, this recovery would be obvious to the poor people of East Berlin who were living so close to their western neighbours. This could cause problems as people may come to resent the lower living standards in the communist zone
• The events of the Berlin Blockade

  1. On 24 June 1948, Stalin ordered the closure of all road, rail and canal links with West Berlin

  2. The official reason given for the closures was technical difficulties; in fact, the Soviets believed that the whole affair was an attempt by the West to destroy the East German economy
• Why did Stalin take this risk?

  It is unlikely that he expected his actions to lead to war; Instead he probably hoped that he could force the West to abandon Berlin and thus leave it under Soviet control
• Berlin only had enough supplies to last it for a maximum of six weeks
• There was no way that the USA could allow this to happen; Berlin had become a powerful symbol of the struggle for power in Europe between capitalism and communism
• President Truman: 'When we refused to be forced out of Berlin, we demonstrated to Europe that we would act when freedom was threatened'
• The events of the Berlin Airlift

  1. General Lucius Clay, the Governor of the US zone, pushed for breaking the blockade by force, but Truman rejected the idea

  2. It was decided that airlifting supplies to West Berlin would be the best way of breaking the blockade: Stalin unlikely to shoot planes down, as that would be seen as an act of war

  3. For almost a year, up to 13,000 tonnes of supplies were flown in each day with planes landing, on occasion, at two-minute intervals

  4. By mid-1949, Stalin was forced to admit defeat and the blockade was lifted
• Over two million tonnes of supplies had been airlifted in; 101 men had died, mostly as a result of plane crashes, but war had been avoided and Berlin, for now, had been saved from communism
• The breaking of the Berlin Blockade

  A huge propaganda triumph for the West and a setback for the USSR
• The policy of containment could be seen to have worked, as communism had failed to spread into West Berlin
• In April 1949, even before the end of the blockade, 12 Western nations set up the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO)
• NATO


  A defensive organisation based around the principle that an attack on one of its members would be considered as an attack on all
• All hopes for the reunification of Germany were now gone. In May 1948 the Federal Republic of Germany (known as West Germany) was established. In October, the USSR renamed its zone the German Democratic Republic (East Germany)
• Although NATO was established as a defensive organisation, the Soviets refused to accept that it was anything other than an aggressive alliance
• This opinion seemed to be confirmed when West Germany was allowed to join NATO in 1955. Again, the Soviet fear of a strong Germany was revived
• In response, the Warsaw Pact was established in May 1955. It was basically a communist version of NATO with all countries in the Soviet sphere of influence agreeing to defend each other if one was attacked
• Steve Philips: 'The Berlin crisis... marked the first major flashpoint of the Cold War. Relations between the USA and the USSR... reached such a low position of distrust and suspicion that it became difficult to be any serious dialogue, let alone agreement'