The Berlin airlift

The Berlin airlift was:

• The only means of supplying West Berlin with resources by air, as the overland access to West Berlin was cut
• This airlift was an immense logistical operation achieving a level of supply that the SU had believed impossible
• Many in West Berlin had believed that it was almost as if wartime conditions had returned. This is because:
  • No street lighting was in operation
  • Lack of gas and electricity

The Berlin airlift included:

• Over 277,000 flights were made
• Nearly 400,000 tons of food, coal and supplies were transported
• A new airfield was built at Tegel in the French sector, by army engineers and Berlin volunteers in just 49 days
• On the 16th April 1949, at the height of the operation, an allied aircraft landed in Berlin every minute
• Casualties included 39 British, 31 American and 13 cvilians lost their lives
• Weather conditions were treacherous
• The sheer number and frequency of flights increased the likelihood of on-the-ground accidents
• Soviet planes constantly 'buzzed'
• Radio interferences occured
• Despite this, so FEW DIED

The consequences of the airlift included:

• 11 months after the airlift, the SU CEASED the bloackade
• This was because they realised that the Western Allies would NOT ABANDON BERLIN
• They were also EMBARRASSED that they could NOT DRIVE THEM OUT
• The blockade CAUSED the CREATION of 2 seperate GERMAN STATES
• It also CONFIRMED a NEW WORLD ORDER
  • E.g. The SUPERPOWER CONFLICT was now ESTABLISHED
• The blockade also PROVIDED ASTONISHING WINDOW through which to see how IDEOLOGICAL DIVIDED the POST-WAR WORLD had become
• The DEVELOPMENT of formal WESTERN DEFENCE ARRANGEMENTS were SPED UP by the blockade
  • E.g. The European Defence Organisation (EDO)

The blockade was a failure because:

• The SU was HUMILIATED
• NONE of its GOALS had been ACHIEVED
• It had NOT brought the Western Allies back to the NEGOTIATING TABLE
• It CONFIRMED PARTITION, rather than preventing it
• It did not SUCCEED in PUSHING the USA out
• Berlin REMAINED DIVIDED:
  • EAST & WEST had their OWN adminstrations, currencies and different economic and political systems
• West Berlin soon became a CAPITALIST 'THORN' deep inside the body of the SOVIET BLOC
• Its SYMBOLIC IMPORTANCE during the period of German division, was an OUTPOST of FREEDOM & DEMOCRACY
• The blockade had significant IMPACT on CHANGING the relationship between Germans in the West and their occupiers
• COOPERATIVE SPIRIT had replaced bitterness of defeat
• The ALLIED EFFORT was seen as a great PROPGANDA VICTORY