The Berlin Air Lift: Impact on the Cold War


Figure 1.-The play of these Berlin children reflect a major development in the Cold War. Socialists were the dominant Party before the NAZI seizure of power. And the Communists were also a major force, especially among German workers. It was not unheard of that the German people could turn to the Communists in democratic elections. (France and Italy almost did.) Yet notice the markings on the little boy's airplane--the U.S,s> Aur Force. In only 3 years the people of West Berlin and infact West Germany came to see the same air force that turned their cities into piles of rubble as their defenders in the Cold War. There was no appetite for Commnism in Germany whre voters, unlike East Germans, had the free choice to vote for Communists or other political parties.-

The Berlin Airlift was a major event of the Cold War. The Soviet blockade of West Berlin clarified the Soviet threat to Americans who had during World War II come to think of the Soviets as an ally. The Berlin Airlift was a major turning point in the Cold War. It not only was a action Americns could understand, but it had a major impact on Germans and other Europeans. Even before Stalin lifted the blockade, America had signed the North Atlantic Treaty and there was little opposition in the Senate to raftification. This was a monentous change in American foreign policy. Isolationism was no longer an important force. There would be no withdrawl from Europe as happened after World War I. Stalin expected this, but his own aggressive policies precented it. Soviet actions in Eastern Europe and the blockade of Berlin had convinced many Americans that unlike what occurred after World War I, America had to maintain a presence in Europe to protect the Western democracies. The Airlift sent the message without military action that America and Britain would resist the Soviets. This was clear not only to Berliners, but to West Germans as well. The Berlin Airlift was also a turning point in the post-World War II occupation of Germany. The Soviets were not prepared to return to the Control Council nor am I sure how they would have been received. After the Arlift even the illusion that the victorious World War II Allies were jointly administering a defeated NAZI Germany was dropped. The Soviets and Western Allis would proceed on the path of creating two seprate German states in their respective occupation zones. [Hudson, p. 62.] West Berlin buried deep in the Soviet zone would continue to be the focal point of the conflict between the Soviets and the West in the developing Cold War--in a sence the most dangerous place in the world. Here Soviet and American tanks faced each other and would continue to do so for decades to come. Only the ugly scar that was the Berlin Wall would eventually defuse the situation. The two separate German tates would turn into a test case as to which was the more productive and vibrant system, totalitarian Communism or Democracy and Capitalism.






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Created: 8:01 AM 10/27/2017
Last updated: 8:01 AM 10/27/2017