Cold War Causes – Flashpoint Berlin/Blame

The events of Berlin in 1948 are generally seen as the start of the Cold War. For eleven months, the US and UK delivered thousands of tonnes of resources to a blockaded city, rescuing them from starvation and Communist rule. Well, that’s the western view at least, proving again that history is written by the winners. You will research and analyse both sides. True, the Soviets did blockade West Berlin but were they responsible for the crisis? The consequent airlift is stunning in terms of logistics but was this the only solution put forward?

When you read more about the Berlin Crisis, you will discover that the occupiers of western Germany and Berlin (the US, UK and France) introduced a new currency in June 1948. This was aimed at creating a new West Germany. The Soviet Union retaliated by introducing their own currency, the Ostmark, a few days later. So who is responsible for escalating the tension in Berlin? Clearly, Google’s AI blames Stalin…

Timeline

March 1948: The Western Allies decide to unify their occupation zones economically in Germany, leading to Soviet withdrawal from the Allied Control Council.

March 25-April 1, 1948: Soviets begin restricting Western military and passenger traffic between West Germany zones and Berlin, searching trains and trucks.

April 2, 1948: General Lucius D. Clay halts all military train traffic to Berlin and begins supplying military forces by air (“Little Lift”).

June 19-29, 1948: Soviets block all land, rail, and water routes from Western zones to Berlin. The three western allies introduce the Deutsche Mark for the areas they occupied.

June 24, 1948: Soviet forces officially impose total blockade of West Berlin, severing all ground access. A few days earlier, they introduced their own currency for all of Berlin, the Ostmark.

June 26, 1948: The US and Britain launch the Berlin Airlift to supply West Berlin by air with food, fuel, and essentials.

Mid-July 1948: Soviet troop presence in East Germany increases, Western strategic bombers are reinforced in Britain.

Throughout 1948-1949: The airlift continues continuously, delivering millions of tons of supplies; Soviets attempt harassment but do not break air corridors.

May 12, 1949: After nearly 11 months, Stalin lifts the blockade as the airlift successfully sustains West Berlin.

Post-crisis 1949: Germany remains divided; Western zones form West Germany and Soviet zone becomes East Germany; Berlin remains divided, entrenched front line of Cold War.

Perplexity.ai

Flashpoint Berlin

  • The Big Three first discussed the idea of splitting Germany into four zones at Tehran. The UK, US, Soviet Union and France would each administer a zone until they were satisfied that the country was no longer a threat. Berlin was to be located in the Soviet zone although this was to be split into four too.
  • However, the allies had different views on what should happen to Germany.
    • The Soviet Union wanted Germany punished so it would never be able to threaten her borders again. Their history (1812, 1914, 1919 and 1941) had seen invasions from the west and now was an opportunity to stop this occurring in the future. Quite simply, it wanted revenge too!
    • The US wanted Germany to be reduced industrially so that it could not wage war again in the future. But democracy and education, and the exclusion of any Nazis from public office, should be used to rebuild the country.
    • The UK wanted Germany punished but not to the same degree of 1919.
    • France was ambivalent, she knew that Germany would be weakened and did not really care how much as long as it was no longer a threat.
  • At no point during the Second World War did the Big Three want Germany split into two. However, as the relationship soured between them, it seemed the more likely outcome after 1945.

1948 – Berlin Blockade

Seneca Learning: The Berlin Crisis

Watch parts of the CNN series to learn more about the Berlin Crisis and Airlift.

CNN Berlin

a. What were the economic problems facing Germany after the war? 02:55 – 03:40

b. What did the Soviets and the West want for Germany? 04:20 – 05:07

c. What did the West plan for their sectors in Germany and what was the Soviet and German reactions to this? 07:40 – 10:10

d. How did the Soviets react, what was their plan? And what was the British and American response? 12:36 – 17:00

e. Describe the Berlin Airlift. 17:00 – 19:12

f. What was General Clay‘s (commander in chief of the U.S. forces in Europe and military governor of the U.S. Zone in Germany) strategy to end the blockade? 19:55 – 21:00

g. What was President Truman’s strategy? 21:00 – 21:50

h. What brought Stalin to talk to the West? 21:54 – 22:20

i. What was the Blockade like for ordinary Germans? What did they think of East Berlin?25:20 – 27:40

International Responses to the Berlin Crisis

Much is what is written here is taken from the article below. Please read it if you need more detail or context on the points raised.

Blockaded-Victors-Divided-BerlinDownload
  • Germany was divided from 1949 to 1989, was this what the US and Soviet Union wanted at the end of the Second World War? Probably not but neither was prepared to risk war to get exactly what they wanted.
  • The eleven months of airlift did not happen in isolation, there was continued diplomacy in the background.
  • At the beginning of the crisis, the US believed it could win any future conflict by political means alone, the nuclear option could guarantee this. Berlin was the first real challenge to this.
  • The Soviet Union was also in a strong position too – it had huge influence in central and eastern Europe and still had a powerful military, albeit not one as large in 1945.
  • The US wanted to strengthen a liberal and capitalist Europe, the Soviets wanted communism. Consequently, the former opted for a ‘world ordering power’ strategy with Berlin as the first example of this.
  • Britain and France wanted the US in Europe – they were unable to stop the spread and influence of Soviet Communism by themselves.
  • In response to the blockade, the US opted for Operation VITTLES – the airlift. It would show the Europeans that they had the power to ‘save’ the west Berliners but also to show their ability to help Europe when it needed it.

  • The Berlin Blockade was put into operation because of the decision made by the western allies to introduce a new currency to the western half of the city – the deutschmark. The Soviets saw this as a threat their influence in east Berlin and indeed even eastern Europe. The aims of the blockade were to bring all of Berlin under their control and to show the west that they would not tolerate any challenge to its authority.
  • President Truman was fighting an election campaign at the time of the crisis and opted to be assertive (the airlift) to demonstrate his strength as leader in the embryonic Cold War. He had been criticised previously for a lack of action over the growing Soviet influence in eastern Europe.
  • The plan, agreed upon by General Clay (…), was for three months but with room to extend if needed. Some members of the military were fearful that the Soviets would react aggressively and a war would ensue. This was a risk they took.
  • The UK, who originally started the airlift, were supportive of the operation but some were anxious about the impact it would have on the strength of their armed forces, which was were limited for a variety of reasons after the Second World War.
  • The Soviets were highly critical of this strategy at the time – they saw it as a provocation and an act of ‘rowdyism‘. They responded to the Airlift with a show of force, Air Force bombers would fly spoof raids on Berlin. The objective was to disrupt VITTLES and undermine the political support for it.
  • The Allies’ success in the Airlift depended on careful planning, coordination and execution. A joint air transport committee monitored it and coordinated the efforts of other countries. New technologies were developed, such as the special freight containers which were able to move specific types of goods, and flight plans and weather forecasts were optimised. Despite this, there were still some fatal accidents…there were just too many aircraft in the narrow air corridors and pilots and ground crews can make errors if overworked.

Marc Hansen, Berlin Blockade/Airlift to Berlin – An Assessment in terms of Security Policy. (1948-49), p.10

1948 – Berlin Airlift

Save My Exams – Why Did the USSR Begin the Berlin Blockade?

Historiography of the Berlin Crisis

Dr Armin Grunbacher – Cold War History: The Berlin Blockade and Airlift

  • He also argues that the Airlift had two key positives for the US. The first is that is was proof of the country’s invincibility during the Cold War, at least until this image was ruined in the 1960s because of the Vietnam War.
  • Moreover, it changed )or at least helped to) the perception that the US were protectors rather than occupiers. Remember that between the UK and US, they had dropped 2,700,00 tonnes of bombs on Germany during the Second World War. It is a fact that may have led Germans to be hostile to both nations after the war ended. The Airlift changed this.

NATO and the Soviet Bomb

Who was to blame?

  • The Soviet Union caused the Cold War because…

See Soviet Psyche to understand why the following map is so important to the Soviet Union.

  • So Napoleon’s France in 1812 and Kaiser Wilhelm’s Germany in 1914 both invaded Russia through the North European Plains. Hitler then did the same in 1941. Before then, in 1919, western powers (USA, UK and France) joined the Russian Civil War aiming to help the Whites destroy the Bolsheviks. How could Stalin prevent such an attack again? One solution was to establish a buffer zone in eastern Europe. If there was to be a future European war, it would be fought on foreign land, not Russian!
  • The establishment of the buffer zone would be an aggressive move by Stalin and the Soviet Union. The eastern European countries would not just accept being ruled by Stalin (he actually wanted a compromise whereby the Soviet Union would only be responsible for foreign and defence policies – this was rejected by all). This expansion caused a backlash by the western powers, fearful of Soviet communism infiltrating their own populations and limiting their own economic growth. The promises made at Yalta and Potsdam, especially with regards to Poland, were abandoned as the pre-war government (which had been in exiled in London) was ignored and a Soviet-backed government was put in place by 1945.
  • The USA caused the Cold War because they refused to see the security anxieties of the Soviet Union and only acted to preserve their own economic interests. The loans which were offered by the USA (Marshall Plan) had strings attached. The countries which took them had to buy US-made products.

But there were also other factors:

a. Economic

  • The Soviet Union wanted to recover from the devastation of the Second World War. It had to take reparations from Germany.
  • The US wanted to develop capitalism across the world. Aside from the self-interest, it believed that trade was good for peace.

b. Ideology

  • As you will have read in …some believed at the time that the two ideologies could not exist. The Soviet Union could not reach its Marxist utopia with a world in which capitalism existed. Furthermore, the US did not want bodies such as trade unions having real power in politics. It believed in the rights and power of the individual, not statism.

c. Leaders

  • Arguably, Stalin was the most to blame for starting the Cold War. He was aggressive before the Second World War, was responsible for the Katyn Massacre, signed the Nazi-Soviet Pact and invaded Poland in 1939, and ignored the agreements made at Tehran and Yalta. If you want to blame Roosevelt and Truman too, why did they not share the nuclear technology with the Soviets if they were supposed to be allied?

d. Fear

  • This links with some of the other causes, there was no doubt that trust broke down between the Big Three towards the end of the war. The two superpowers were fearful of the other, especially as they were so powerful militarily. The Soviets had the largest conventional in history and the US had both the largest air force and navy, in addition to the atomic bombs from 1945 onwards.

Or a combination of all of the above.