Berlin Airlift + Blockade

• Flashpoint


  A place or time where tension flares up
• Germany and Berlin divided into 4 zones in 1945
• The USSR controlled the Eastern zone of Germany
• Berlin

  • There were only two land and two air routes from the western zones of Germany to West Berlin
  • There were restrictions on access to West Berlin from the western zones of Germany
• Trizonia was created in March 1948 after the US, Britain, and France met in London, without the Soviets to discuss the future of Germany
• The creation of Trizonia

  Angered the Soviets as they feared the West might try to create one, capitalist Germany
• Airlift started

  24th June 1948
• Blockade lifted


  12th May 1949
• The Airlift was a propaganda victory for the West
• The Berlin blockade and Airlift

  Affected Cold War tensions by making Stalin and the Soviets look aggressive and weak, while the Western Allies looked like heroes, leading to a worsening of East-West relations
• Introduction of Deutschmark

  1948
• Allied Airlift


  1948-1949
• FRG


  Federal Republic of Germany, West Germany
• GDR


  German Democratic Republic, East Germany
• NATO


  Defensive military alliance in the West, led by the US and other Western countries
• Warsaw Pact


  Defensive military alliance in the East, led by the Soviet Union and satellite states
• Warsaw Pact


  A military treaty and association of communist countries, formed in 1955. Members promised to support each other.
• In 1948, Stalin cut off all road, rail and canal access from the West into Berlin


  This event was called the Berlin Blockade
• The USA and its allies in the West responded to the Berlin Blockade by

  Airlifting supplies to West Berlin
• Berlin was divided into 4 zones in 1945
• Berlin Blockade occurred in 1948
• Marshall Aid and the Airlift occurred in 1949
• The Western zones of Germany merged in March 1948
• The German Democratic Republic (GDR) and Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) were created after 1949
• West Berlin was located within East Germany