Berlin Blockade
The Berlin Blockade, which began in mid-1948 and lasted nearly a year, was one of the first major crises of the Cold War. The Soviet Union cut off road, rail, and canal access to the western sectors of Berlin, hoping to force the Western Allies out of the city. Instead, the United States, Britain, and France supplied West Berlin by air, and the failure of the blockade hardened the division of Europe into two opposing blocs.
After Germany's defeat in 1945, the country and its capital were divided into four occupation zones administered by the United States, Britain, France, and the Soviet Union. Berlin lay about 100 miles inside the Soviet zone, yet it was also split into four sectors, leaving the western sectors as an isolated enclave. Relations among the former allies deteriorated quickly. The Western powers moved to merge their zones economically and to rebuild German industry, while Moscow, which sought heavy reparations and feared a revived Germany, objected strongly. In June 1948 the Western Allies introduced a new currency, the Deutsche Mark, in their zones and in West Berlin. The Soviets saw this as a violation of joint arrangements and a step toward a separate West German state.
In response, Soviet authorities halted ground traffic into West Berlin and cut some electricity supplies, citing technical problems and the currency dispute. Roughly two million people in the western sectors depended on outside deliveries of food and fuel. Some Western officials considered withdrawing, but most, including American military governor Lucius Clay and President Harry Truman, were determined to stay. Because the Allies had agreed air corridors into Berlin, flights offered a way to hold the city without force. What followed was the Berlin Airlift, in which American and British aircraft, with support from other Commonwealth crews, flew in food, coal, and other necessities around the clock. Flights eventually arrived at very short intervals, and the volume delivered grew steadily despite winter weather and skepticism that such a feat was possible.
The Soviets did not shoot down the aircraft, and by spring 1949 it was clear the blockade was failing. Restrictions on land access were lifted in May 1949, though the airlift continued for some months to build up stockpiles.
The consequences were lasting. The crisis helped spur the creation of NATO in April 1949 and accelerated the formation of two German states that year: the Federal Republic in the west and the German Democratic Republic in the east. West Berliners, once seen as former enemies, came to be viewed as partners in defending freedom. Berlin remained a flashpoint until the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961 and, ultimately, the end of the Cold War.