After the end of World War Two, Germany was divided into four military occupation zones under the control of the four major allied powers. The Soviets controlled the Eastern part of Germany while the French, British, and Americans all controlled their own section of West Germany. The city of Berlin, located far inside the Soviet zone, was also divided in a similar way. The Soviets controlled the Eastern part of the city while the British, French, and Americans all controlled their own parts of West Berlin. Given the close proximity to the East and West to each other during that dynamic part of the Cold War, conflict was common. One of the most memorable conflicts in Germany during the Cold War was the Berlin Blockade and the subsequent Berlin Airlift.
While the conflict could be said to have begun at the end of World War II when Germany was divided among the four major allies, the Berlin Blockade crisis really began on June 15, 1948 when the Soviets closed the roads connecting West Germany to West Berlin. On the 21st, they prohibited barge traffic to the city and on the 24th, they announced that trains would no longer run between Berlin and West Germany. These measures effectively cut West Berlin off from West Germany. The situation became dire on the 25th when the East German government announced that it would not supply food to West Berlin. This set up the potential for a great humanitarian crisis. With food reserves that would last little more than a month and no way of importing more food, the residents of West Berlin would starve if the Allies did not do something.
The Allies could do very little, however. They did not want to risk open war with the Soviets, so they could not forcibly open the roads again. Calling the Societs’ bluff by doing nothing might have worked, but it also might have condemned millions of men, women, and children to starvation. It was eventually decided that the Allies had to engage in an airlift to supply West Berlin with food and fuel. Unless the Soviets wanted to shoot down cargo planes and start a full blown war, they could not stop the Allies from making deliveries of food and fuel to the residents of West Berlin. To that end, the British and Americans mobilized many of the planes they still had left over from World War II and began the most massive humanitarian project in history.
The airlift began on June 24, 1948. It took several months to fully coordinate the massive effort, however. Eventually, the Allies began sending large cargo planes from West Germany to West Berlin along three corridors. Planes were sent three minutes apart and staggered so that each wave flew 500 feet above the one before it. This pattern was repeated after five planes and continued night and day for months. To prevent the planes from running into each other, the Allies allowed each plane only one chance to land and prohibited crews from leaving their planes before taking off again. Despite the precautions, several of the planes crashed and at least 101 individuals lost their lives in the effort.
The Berlin Airlift required a massive effort on the part of the Allies, but it was a huge propaganda success for them. Not only did it supply food and fuel to millions of individuals for several months, but it allowed many West Berliners to flee to West Germany. In the end, the Soviet zone was forced to call off the Blockade. On midnight on May 11, 1949, the blockade officially expired. Flights continued until the end of September, however, to build up reserves in the event of another blockade. By that time, the operation had flown over 275,000 flights and had delivered 2,326,406 tons of food and fuel to the citizens of West Berlin. The Germans did not forget the good will shown to them by the Western Allies and the Berlin Airlift was one of the major events that helped turn the Germans into staunch allies of their former enemies in the West.
