Germany

1
Germany

• The Berlin Blockade

2
Germany the key to Europe?

• Germany the first hot spot for the Cold War?
• Division of Germany
• Recovery of European economy tied to Germany
• Germany eligible for Marshall Plan aid
• Early September, US has joined with Britain to
  make one military province Bizonia
• Gave economic stability to the British zone
• France soon joined, and became province of
  Trizonia

3
The Catalyst

• February 1948 suggested that currency reform
  necessary
• Soviets hoped to continue German recession,
  therefore favoured Soviet Reichsmark
• March 1948 Soviet delegation walked out of
  meeting
• US, France, Britain - established new currency 18
  June 1948

4
West Sector residents exchange their Reichsmarks
for Deutsch Marks
5
USSR concerns

• USSR, invaded twice by Germany, alarmed at
  prospect of a strong Germany
• Soviet leadership installing their own new
  currency in East Berlin
• Required all Western convoys bound for Berlin to
  be searched
• Trizone govt. refused the right of the Soviets to
  search their cargo
• 27 June 1948 all surface traffic cut off to West
  Berlin no land and rail routes
• American ambassador to Britain, John Winnant,
  stated the accepted Western view when he said
  that he believed that the right to be in Berlin
  carried with it the right of access.

6
Lucius Clay

• Lucius Clay, the military governor of the
  American zone of Germany wrote
• When the order of the Soviet Military
  Administration to close all rail traffic from the
  western zones went into effect at 600AM on the
  morning of June 24, 1948, the three western
  sectors of Berlin, with a civilian population of
  about 2,500,000 people, became dependent on
  reserve stocks and airlift replacements. It was
  one of the most ruthless efforts in modern times
  to use mass starvation for political coercion...

7
Results?

• Initially the Soviet authorities thought plan was
  working
• Reported
• Our control and restrictive measures have dealt
  a strong blow at the prestige of the Americans
  and British in Germany.
• British and US plan
• A large-scale airlift
• Under the leadership of General Curtis LeMay,
  ten-ton capacity C-54s began supplying the city
  on 1 July 1948
• Airlift code-named Operation Vittles (US) but
  often referred to as LeMay's feed and coal
  company
• Code-named Operation Plane Fare (Britain)
• Brought in an average of 5,000 tons of supplies a
  day

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Airlift facts

• Blockade lasted 318 days
• In the winter 1948-9 Berliners lived on dried
  potatoes, powdered eggs and cans of meat, with
  four hours of electricity a day
• 275 000 flights carried in 1.5 million tons of
  supplies
• A plane landed every 3 minutes in West Berlin
• The US stationed B-29 bombers (which had the
  capacity to carry an atomic bomb) in Britain
• Central air corridor exclusively for flights out
  of Berlin to West Germany
• 160000 people were flown out by French, British
  and US planes during the airlift, including 15000
  children, many of whom were sick or malnourished
• Airport in French zone created in 93 days, with
  the help of 17000 Berliners

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Reputation

• Easter Sunday, 16 April 1949, 1400 flights
  brought in 13000 tons of supplies in one day
  Berlin only needed 6000 tons a day to survive
  showing off!
• Some pilots dropped chocolate and sweets
• US pilots often regarded as heroes in West
  Berlin

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Media

• The incessant roar of the planesthat typical
  and terrible 20th Century sound, a voice of cold
  mechanized angerfilled every ear in the city. It
  reverberated in the bizarre stone ears of the
  hollow, broken houses it throbbed in the weary
  ears of Berlin's people who were bitter, afraid,
  but far from broken it echoed in the intently
  listening ear of history. The sound meant one
  thing the West was standing its ground and
  fighting back.
• Time Magazine Monday 12 July 1948

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Media

• It might have been smarter for the U.S. not to
  have gone to Berlin in the first place, or to
  have withdrawn two years ago when Berlin had not
  become a spectacular issue testing the West's
  firmness. Today those are academic questions, for
  the U.S. stands committed. The U.S. stake in
  Berlin is faith. Withdrawal would leave to
  despairand to Soviet persecutiontens of
  thousands of anti-Communists whom the U.S.
  encouraged to speak their minds against the Reds.
  It would mean the retreat of an army which,
  however small, is the symbol of America's
  commitment to Western European safety. It would
  give the Russians a chance to rally all Germans
  around their old capital that might wreck
  America's plans for a Western German state and a
  healthy Ruhr, on which the Marshall Plan depends.
  Last week's ruthless siege of Berlin was a siege
  of all of Germany and Europe as well.
• Time Magazine Monday 12 July 1948

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Fresh milk being loaded on a C-47. Shipments of
whole milk soon were dropped in favor of more
weight efficient condensed milk
16
Early morning airlift operations at Tempelhof, 22
August 1948. Note the trio of aircraft parked
beneath the overhang of the airport structure
17
The Tempelhof Flight Operations Desk
18
A resident of the Neukoeln District receiving her
weekly coal ration
19
A student pilot receiving radar instructions for
his simulated flight down an airlift corridor
20
Much of the coal flown into Berlin was unloaded
into barges on the Havel River. When filled, the
barges carried coal to Kladow or Westhafen area
for distribution to industries and homes in the
blockaded city. The barges carried an average of
500 to 700 tons of "vittles" coal daily
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22
A sample of the kind of weather that plagued
flight operations throughout the airlift
23
Fueled by doughnuts, hamburgers and coffee, these
pilots at Rhein-Main flew four round trips per day
24
Halvorsen's bunk becomes a factory for miniature
parachutes weighted with Lyons chocolate
25
Miniature parachutes can be seen dropping from
Halvorsen's C-54 as he brings the plane in for a
landing at Tempelhof
26
A young girl with one of the estimated 150,000
Schokoladenflieger gifts dropped over Berlin
27
A group of Berlin children try to express their
appreciation to Lieutenant Gail S. Halversen, the
orginator of "Operation Little Vittles," for the
thousands of packages of gum and candy he and his
friends dropped over Berlin in tiny parachutes
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The Blockade concludes

• Negotiations began late-August, an attempt at
  action though the UN but vetoed by Soviet Union
• Allies began a counter-blockade of restrictions
  of critical goods entering the Eastern sectors of
  Berlin
• 2 February 1949 Stalin agreed to lift the
  blockade if the Western powers would end the
  counter-blockade negotiation continued
• 12 May 1949 Stalin lifted the blockade

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Outcomes?

• Blockade almost totally ineffective for SU
• Demonstrated the strength of the US
• Provoked genuine fear of war in the West
• Instead of preventing establishment of an
  independent Germany, accelerated the Western
  powers plans to set up the state

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More documents

• http//www.learningcurve.gov.uk/coldwar/G4/cs1/def
  ault.htm
• http//www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_col
  lections/berlin_airlift/large/docs.php?actiondocs