The Berlin Blockade (24 June 1948 – 12 May 1949) was one of the first major international crises of the Cold War. During the multinational occupation of post–World War II Germany, the Soviet Union blocked the Western Allies' railway, road, and canal access to the sectors of Berlin under Western control. The Soviets offered to drop the blockade if the Western Allies withdrew the newly introduced Deutsche Mark from West Berlin.
The Western Allies organised the Berlin Airlift (German: Berliner Luftbrücke, lit. "Berlin Air Bridge") from 26 June 1948 to 30 September 1949 to carry supplies to the people of West Berlin, a difficult feat given the size of the city and the population. American and British air forces landed in Berlin more than 200,000 times, delivering 13,000 tons of food, fuel, and other necessities each day. Among these was the work of the later concurrent Operation Little Vittles in which candy-dropping aircraft dubbed "raisin bombers" generated much goodwill among German children.
On 12 May 1949, the USSR lifted the blockade of West Berlin, due to economic issues in East Berlin, although for a time the Americans and British continued to supply the city by air as they were worried that the Soviets would resume the blockade and were only trying to disrupt Western supply lines. The Berlin Airlift officially ended on 30 September 1949 after fifteen months. The US Air Force had delivered 1,783,573 tons (76.4% of total) and the RAF 541,937 tons (23.3% of total), totalling 2,334,374 tons, nearly two-thirds of which was coal, on 278,228 flights to Berlin. In addition Canadian, Australian, New Zealand and South African air crews assisted the RAF during the blockade. The French air force also conducted flights, but only to supply their own military garrison.
American C-47 and C-54 transport airplanes, together, flew over 92 million miles (148 million kilometres) in the process, almost the distance from Earth to the Sun. British transports, including Handley Page Haltons and Short Sunderlands, flew as well. At the height of the airlift, one plane reached West Berlin every thirty seconds.
Seventeen American and eight British aircraft crashed during the operation. A total of 101 fatalities were recorded as a result of the operation, including 40 Britons and 31 Americans, mostly due to flying accidents.
The Berlin Blockade served to highlight the competing ideological and economic visions for postwar Europe. It played a major role in aligning West Berlin with the United States and Britain as the major protecting powers, and in drawing West Germany into the NATO orbit several years later in 1955.
Potsdam Agreement and division of Berlin
From 17 July to 2 August 1945, the victorious Allies signed the Potsdam Agreement on the fate of postwar Europe, calling for the division of defeated Germany, west of the Oder–Neisse line, into four temporary occupation zones, each controlled by one of the four occupying Allied powers: the United States, the United Kingdom, France and the Soviet Union (thus re-affirming principles already given by the Yalta Conference). These zones were roughly aligned with the locations of the allied armies. All four zones would be treated as a single economic unit through the Allied Control Council (consisting of the military governors of each zone) located in Berlin. Berlin was also divided into four occupation zones, despite the city's location, 100 miles (160 km) inside Soviet-controlled eastern Germany. The United States, United Kingdom, and France controlled western portions of the city, while Soviet troops controlled the eastern sector.
Each military governor had ultimate authority in his zone which meant the Allied Control Council required unanimous agreement. The Allied Western powers never explicitly agreed with the Soviet Union that they had right of access to Berlin. There was only a verbal agreement between Marshal Georgi K. Zhukov, the Soviet commander in Germany, General Lucius D. Clay, Commander in Chief, United States Forces in Europe, and Sir Robert Weeks, representative of the British government. On 30 November 1945, the Allied Control Council in Berlin approved the only written agreement regarding transportation to Berlin from the West. This allowed three 20-mile-wide air corridors between the city and West Germany for French, British and American planes. Also stipulated in the agreement was for Berlin airspace to be controlled by a four-power Air Safety Centre.
In the eastern zone, the Soviet authorities forcibly unified the Communist Party of Germany and Social Democratic Party (SPD) in the Socialist Unity Party ("SED"), claiming that it would not have a Marxist–Leninist or Soviet orientation. The SED leaders then called for the "establishment of an anti-fascist, democratic regime, a parliamentary democratic republic" while the Soviet Military Administration suppressed all other political activities. Factories, equipment, technicians, managers and skilled personnel were removed to the Soviet Union.
In a June 1945 meeting, Stalin informed German communist leaders that he expected to slowly undermine the British position within their occupation zone, that the United States would withdraw within a year or two and that nothing would then stand in the way of a united Germany under communist control within the Soviet orbit. Stalin and other leaders told visiting Bulgarian and Yugoslavian delegations in early 1946 that Germany must be both Soviet and communist.
Berlin quickly became the focal point of both US and Soviet efforts to re-align Europe to their respective visions. As Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov said, "What happens to Berlin, happens to Germany; what happens to Germany, happens to Europe." Berlin had suffered enormous damage; its prewar population of 4.3 million people was reduced to 2.8 million.
After harsh treatment, forced emigration, political repression and the particularly harsh winter of 1945–1946, Germans in the Soviet-controlled zone were hostile to Soviet endeavours. Local elections in 1946 resulted in a massive anti-communist protest vote, especially in the Soviet sector of Berlin. Berlin's citizens overwhelmingly elected non-Communist members to its city government.
The Soviets also granted only three air corridors for access to Berlin from Hamburg, Bückeburg, and Frankfurt. In 1946 the Soviets stopped delivering agricultural goods from their zone in eastern Germany, and the American commander, Lucius D. Clay, responded by stopping shipments of dismantled industries from western Germany to the Soviet Union. In response, the Soviets started a public relations campaign against American policy and began to obstruct the administrative work of all four zones of occupation.
Marshall Plan and Soviet reaction
American planners had privately decided during the war that it would need a strong, allied Germany to assist in the rebuilding of the West European economy. In January 1947, James F. Byrnes resigned as Secretary of State and was succeeded by George C. Marshall who was tasked with consolidating power in Western Germany. President Truman was concerned about the influence of Stalin in spreading communism to other European countries. Truman adopted a policy of containment and part of this plan involved giving significant amounts of money to capitalist Western European countries. The delivery of aid was called the European Recovery Program, also known as the Marshall Plan, after General George C. Marshall, and was introduced in June 1947.
To coordinate the economies of the British and United States occupation zones, these were combined on 1 January 1947 into what was referred to as the Bizone. At a meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers, in November–December 1947, in London, the Allies could not agree among themselves to reunite Germany. Britain and America discussed how to move forward, and Bevin and Marshall had their Military Governors in Germany to coordinate a political structure in Bizonia. (In July 1949, the French zone was merged into the Bizone, thus forming the Trizone.)