The Berlin Airlift Essays

The person I choose for this topic is Ronald Reagan, he is a big part on how the Cold War ended. Russia, as everyone knows, has always been competitive with the U.S.A, the two countries always go back and forth with each other to be the first at everything. Now the Berlin Wall had been there for some time, ever since 1961. The communist government of Eastern Germany created the wall because they wanted to prevent disaffected people who were trying to fleeing to the West. But with this little did they know the trouble it would cause for the future. There were four powers during the time, Russia, France, Britain, and the United States. Berlin was in the Russian sector, but because the powers were only split amongst four countries it became a

Despite its beginnings as a logistical nightmare for the aircrews and aviators, the Berlin Airlift was extremely effective in the role of containing the spread of communism into Berlin, while ensuring the survival of capitalism for millions of its citizens.

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.

As the Soviet Union tried to push us into giving them Berlin, Germany with the Berlin Blockade we have found another way. The Berlin Airlift is the French, British and Americans solution to the struggle for ways to get our people the resources they are in dire need of. Over the course of a year and a half there was over 2.3 million tons of cargo flown into the western part of the city. At the beginning of “Operation Vittles” the planes delivered 5,000 tons of cargo into the city. As that was not enough, the loads increased to 8,000 tons per day. The pattern was very tight some people have said that they counted as many as four planes parachuting goods to the city per minute. It wasn’t as simple as sending it though. Life in Western Berlin was

The Berlin Airlift was an initial factor that led up to the outbreak of the Cold War. The disagreements for the fate of Germany between western countries and the Soviet Union created tension that would only increase over time. The Allies wanted a unified Germany and to restore its economy. While on the other hand, the Soviets wanted Germany to be weak and vulnerable so that they may gain power over them. Finally, a blockade was made in Berlin to cut off all supplies coming in from rails and roads in order to hinder their ability to function at their most effective level. The Soviets did this to win power over Germany, the only way for supplies to get through, was by air. As the tensions between the western democratic countries and the communists

On June 15th, 1948, Soviet authorities stated that the Autobahn highway would be closed indefinitely for repairs. They then proceeded to put up a blockade, thus trapping people in the city of Berlin. The Americans, French, and British were trapped on the west side of the city. After being encased in the city for days with many people, no outside trade, and a big, dangerous wall keeping you from leaving, resources began to run low. Many people turned to the black market to get the materials they needed to keep them and their families alive. The US government wanted to help its people, so they came up with a plan to deliver the resources the people in West Berlin needed. This plan became known as the Berlin Airlift. The Berlin Airlift was a military operation that delivered food, fuel, medicine, and other goods to West Berlin. The Airlift began on June 24th, 1948, and ended on May 12th, 1949. The Airlift was supposed to be short

Airstrikes that were deployed towards the U.K. (United Kingdom) and strikes down near Moscow Russia. The second crisis in Berlin begins in November causing Nikita Khrushchev to ask the west to leave the eastern side of Berlin.

The Berlin Blockade certainly confirmed the intensity to which the Soviet Union would pursue its own policy objectives. It followed a series of complicated events that further broke down the possibility of negotiating. The Soviets were using the police to make the role of the elected city officials, who would not bow to Moscow, impossible and disrupted campaigns.16 The United States wanted to move forward with making Germany independent and self sufficient, but the Soviets proved impossible demanding complete control of issues like currency. This led the Western powers to discuss policy in their zones jointly in London without the Soviet Union. The very thought of an independent Western Germany was opposite to the Soviets goals. All this culminated

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 divided the country because of the different powers started to introduce new forms of government to take over the country. These acts caused The Soviet Union to impose a blockade one day later. The four nations that had agreed to split up Berlin were The Soviet Union, U.S, The

On June 24, 1948, the Soviets officially cut all electricity and transportation routes to and from the western zones of Berlin.22 They would remain closed for almost a year. The only reason the United States did not leave and Berliners were not starved into submission was because the United States Air Force, the Royal Air Force, and the French Air Force flew literally thousands of tons of food and fuel into the city daily. The actual events during the blockade are not important to this argument. All the reader need know is that the Soviets continually changed their justification for the blockade and were ever changing their demands for it to be lifted. What is important, was that many in Washington could not believe what was happening. Many

In 1948 three countries, USA, France and UK, held conference, where they discussed the issue of Germany and what to do next. They tackled issues such as the future of Germany, the control of the Ruhr area and the payment of reparations (Douglas R, 2013) A new conference of the three countries occurred in Frankfurt, where still dealt with the issue of Germany and came to an agreement on the division of it. In Washington was another meeting of ministers of the three countries, where they signed a document which confirmed the occupation policy of the three powers in Germany. (Douglas R, 2013)

The president exaggerated Berlin's importance, and his tough posturing made the crisis last longer than necessary and increased the danger of armed conflict. It was not wise of him to publicly threaten the use of atomic weapons. Truman's actions were, in fact, reckless because they risked war over an area that possessed political rather than military significance. In the presidential election of November 1948, Truman polled twenty-four million votes to the Republican opposition’s twenty-two; Truman’s primary aim was to enhance national prestige and score a political victory.

Berlin Airlift was the first major test of the Free World’s will to resist Soviet aggression. It all began in June 1948, when Soviet authorities claimed that “technical difficulties” would halt all traffic by land and water in and out of the western-controlled sections of Berlin. The only passages left into this territory that wouldn’t upset the Soviets were three 20-mile wide air corridors. The Western powers (United States, Great Britain, and France) were then faced with two options: abandoning the city, or supplying the 2.5 million people with enough supplies to live by air for the next 11 months. By choosing the latter, the Western powers embarked on one of the greatest aviation feats in history.