Research Paper On The Berlin Airlift

At the long awaited end of World War 2, Germany was divided into two pieces, one for capitalists and the other for communists. Berlin, the stronghold city of Germany at the time, was split into two pieces as well, one part for capitalists and one part for communists, all separated by the infamous Berlin wall. West Berlin was a pro-american island in a soviet sea, and when the soviet union decided to blockade any shipments into West Berlin, the United States had to take immediate action. America shipped in supplies to West Berlin by air! If it hadnt been for America and its allies supporting West Berlin, it could have easily been conquered by the surrounding communists. The Berlin Airlift displayed the fight that America put into containing communism and how hard they were willing to work to keep the red water as far away from them as possible. These diplomatic tactics saved Berlin and eventually led to the Berlin walls’ downfall, allowing the city to come together and live peacefully. This was one of the first major steps in stopping the spread of communism through

Germany and the capital, Berlin, was split at the end of WWII. The East Berlin and Germany were controlled by the Soviets and West Berlin and Germany was controlled by the US, France, and Britain. Since West Berlin was completely surrounded by communism, Joseph Stalin, the leader of the Soviet Union, decided to prevent any shipments (including food) from going into West Berlin (Doc. B) in an attempt to starve them out. They created a blockade. When the US and its allies found out, they sent planes over to get the shipments and take them to the West Berliners which provided over two million people with supplies ranging from food to coal for nearly over a year (Doc. B).

The Berlin airlift initially started with the division of Germany into four sections amongst major powers, including the US, Britain, France, and the Soviet Union after WWII. The United States, Britain, and France united to make West Berlin, while East Berlin belonged to the Soviet Union. On June 27, 1948, Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union decided to blockade any shipments into West Berlin in an attempt to weaken and overthrow it. With West Berlin surrounded by communism and no source of food because of the blockade, they saw no other choice but to surrender, that is until the US and its allies stepped in to help. The US and its allies supported West Berliners through airlifts, this consisted of supplies from food to coal being flown in to over two million people. On May 12, 1949, Stalin discards of the blockade, this left the nation and Harry Truman thrilled. The Berlin Airlift is a good example of containment because the United States was triumphant in keeping West Berlin from being overthrown by communist East

After World War II, Germany were divided into four occupied sectors. As shown on the map, the city of Berlin was divided and each dominated by a sector of the Allied Powers: Soviet Union, United States, Britain and France (Doc 3a). East Berlin was controlled under a communist rule by the Soviet Union, while West Berlin was governed under a democratic government. Winston Churchill additionally enhanced the idea of the Iron Curtain being that it represented an invisible line that separated the democratic countries of Western Europe from the communist countries of Eastern Europe. The Soviet Union built the Berlin Wall to restrained people in East Berlin from fleeing to West Berlin. East Germans constructed the Berlin Wall to formally split East and West Berlin (Doc 3b). The Soviet Union denied access to transportation, food and water. The Berlin airlift was an event in which the United States, Britain, and France delivered goods to the people of West Berlin for 11 months after Stalin set up a

“What happens to Berlin happens to Germany; what happens to Germany, happens to Europe.” These were the words of Vyacheslav Molotov, Soviet Foreign Minister from 1939 through 1949. The Soviet Blockade of Berlin was a direct challenge to Western attempts to combine their zones of occupation, and it threatened to unleash World War III. The Western Allies’ response to this blockade was a massive airlift, supplying over two million people in West Berlin with food, water, medicine, and other supplies. The Berlin Airlift was an important historical event which occurred just three years after the conclusion of World War II in Europe, and it had many complex causes and far-reaching consequences.

American and British leaders prevented the spread of communism to Berlin by means of patient and strategic actions against the Soviet Union. This strategy is shown in Document B, where it shows a map of divided Germany. The Soviet Union hoped to take Germany under its empire by cutting off all aid from other countries. this became known as the Berlin blockade. the U.S. refused to let the USSR gain Germany and as a result America and Britain airlifted supplies to the people of Berlin. No matter what the weather, they airlifted supplies. this showed the world and the Soviet Union what America was willing to do to stop communism.

After the conclusion of World War II, the city of Berlin was divided into two major sections: East and West Berlin. The western section was divided between the three allies and under the control of Britain, the United States, and France, while the eastern portion was under the Soviet's control. The portion of Berlin owned by the western powers had become a small hold on capitalism in a sea of Marxist communism. On 24 June 1948, the Soviet Union cut off all ground routes into the western portion of Berlin. This would leave approximately 2.5 million Berlin citizens without the United States supplies they had been receiving. It would also leave the roughly 6,500 western troops without ground-level support, surrounded by 16,000 soviets (Owens 70).

The Berlin Blockade and Airlift portrayed containment by splitting up Germany, flying supplies over to East Berlin, and making

In 1948, the USSR set up a blockade around Berlin and closed off all methods of transportation out of the city. They did this to keep the Western Allies out of the area and to isolate the city of Berlin from the influences of democratic countries. Instead of surrendering to the USSR, the US decided to work around this obstacle and created the Berlin Airlift. The US and other nations would drop supplies to the citizens in Berlin to get them to see how kind the Americans were. The goal of this was to stop the spread of communism and persuade the city of Berlin to become a democratic area. The US also created the “Candy Bombers.” These were people who would drop things like toys,books, and candy into Berlin for the children. The children of Berlin were the future and had more of an impact on society than anyone. The US gained lots of support and power due to this event because of its success. After the Soviet Union’s plan clearly failed, they decided to give up and remove the blockade in May of 1949. This was seen as a major victory for the US.

This is the first major episode of containment. Stalin believed that the Marshall Plan was expanding American influence. That the United States and its allies had big chuck of control of Berlin. Stalin had opposing views with those Western allies as they undermined him. Actions of the Western Allies led Stalin to be frustrated and threatened that Germany would be invaded the Soviet Union again. So, Stalin called the Berlin Blockade. It was a response to this pressure. The purpose of the Berlin Blockade was to block Western Allies railway, road, and canal access to sectors of Berlin, that were under Western Control. This caused a chaos in Berlin and the population was low on supplies. The Western Allies responded with the Berlin Airlift. It was considered an episode of containment. It was supposed to save West Berlin from communism and stop the spread of communism. It happened from June 1948 to May 1949. The United States and its allies were flying roughly a year to West Berlin to drop supplies. They flew over 200,000 flights in one year and provided more than 5,000 tons of the

The Soviet Union expressed a desire to isolate Berlin and restrain political unification in West Germany in order to discourage the Western powers from enforcing any hold over the land. However, in the second meeting of their London conference, the Western powers chose to proceed with their currency reform. The Soviet Union also finally enacted a full-scale blockade on June 24 by closing the railroads and the Autobahn, Germany’s main expressway connecting West Berlin and West Germany, as well as shutting off the power from the main plant in East Berlin. The communist power set up a meeting with its allies the following day and issued the Warsaw Declaration in retaliation to the decisions made at the London conference. Western powers expressed concern towards West Berliners, the victims of the Soviet Union’s actions, because their lives relied heavily on the resources they received through the blocked routes. The Western Powers then worked to devise a way to aid them.

The original conflict that led to the Berlin blockade arose after World War II. As early as 1947, growing problems between western democracy (United States, Britain et al.) and communism (the Soviet Union), started to take definite shape as the

The Berlin Airlift was Britain’s and the United States response to the Soviets blockade of all rail, road and water routes and communications with the West. After World War Two, Germany was split into sectors by Britain, the United States and Soviet Russia; Berlin was in the Soviet occupation zone, with only the west division of Berlin under the West’s control.[1] The Airlift took place from June 24, 1948 to September 30, 1949, even though the blockade ended on May 12, 1949. The airlift delivered 2,323,738 tons of food, fuel, machinery and other supplies to the people of West Berlin.[2] The Berlin airlift demonstrated to the World the Allies’ willingness to stand up to the Soviets and gave birth to such folk heroes as Colonel Gail Halvorsen,

On May 8th, 1945, Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel surrendered the German armed forces to the allies in Berlin, thus ending the war for Germany. The German people were then confronted by a situation never before experienced. All of Germany was occupied by foreign armies, their cities and infrastructure lay in ruins, and millions were homeless and starving. Following the unilateral surrender by Germany, the country was divided into four zones, governed by each of the allied powers: Britain, France, the U.S. and the Soviet Union. As diplomacy between the West and the Soviet Union began to deteriorate, each zone became more self-sufficient and independent of the others. Tensions between the West and the Soviet Union also began to rise as it became apparent that the two super powers, the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. would vie for dominance throughout the world, each seeking to spread its ideology and stop the spread of the other’s. The first real exacerbation of this conflict came when the Soviet Union blockaded the divided city of Berlin, which lay in is zone of control. The U.S.S.R. wanted to test the Western resolve to hold Berlin and maintain control. The response the U.S. chose was to keep Berlin supplied by air, through constant resupply by aircraft, a feat never before accomplished. The airlift lasted for nearly eleven months and kept the Western controlled sectors of Berlin adequately supplied, and showed the Soviet Union the U.S.’s resolve to hold out against the spread of

They wanted to drive The United States of America, The United Kingdom and France out of the city. So, in 1948, what came to be known as the Soviet Blockade was an event that aimed to starve the western Allies out of the city. The United States could have retreated and started a war. But they did not. In fact, they themselves sent food to the city of Berlin and wanted to bring it back to normal. This is because they did not want Soviet Union to gain full control over the city. They could not see this part of the city turning totally communist. This effort, known as the Berlin Airlift, lasted for more than a year and delivered more than 2.3 million tons of food, fuel and other goods to West Berlin. 300,000 Berliners demonstrated for the international airlift to continue. In May 1949, The Soviets lifted the blockade, permitting the resumption of Western shipments to Berlin.