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How Did the Berlin Airlift Lead to the Cold War?

by | Mar 7, 2024 | Cold War Tour Berlin

The Berlin Airlift, so also known as Operation Vittles, plays an indispensable part in the historical study of the early Cold War period. It happened between June 1948 and May 1949 when Soviet Union seal all the road, railways and waterways that connected West Berlin to the western Allied zones of Germany and aimed to drive out Allied forces from West Berlin. As a result, West Berlin began to starve and the Western Allies decided to perform a massive air lift in order to supply the residents of this city. This had ramifications, and was to prove one of the most important incidents in the Cold War. The purpose of this paper is to analyze how the Berlin Airlift provoked the escalation of the confrontation between America and USSR.

 

The Context: Germany after World War II

After the end of World War II, Germany was divided into four zones of occupation controlled by the Allied forces: the United States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain and France. However, after the formation of the bipolar ideology it did not take long before disagreements emerged between the former wartime allies. The United States, Great Britain, and France wanted to construct Germany into a democratic country, the Soviet Union wanted to place a communistic government into Germany’s area that was allocated to it.

 

The Berlin Airlift was born out of the Soviet Blockade that started on 24th June 1948 and which would take a Berliner on foot nearly four days to get through the blockage.

We saw this come to a head in June of 1948 when the Soviets blocked all ground and water communication to West Berlin, a city deep in the Soviet controlled east Germany. The idea was to make the Western Allied powers quit West Berlin and in essence gain full control of the whole city. The Soviet Union had to give the signal of power and minimalize the role of the Western Allies in Germany.

 

The effect of the blockade was to cut short the supplies which the residents of West Berlin relied much on their Allies from the West. Isolated, they had no food, fuel and other necessities and their lives depended on the survival of their fellows. But the United States, together with its Western Allies, responded in an unusual fashion – by the Berlin Airlift.

 

The Berlin Airlift covered the dropping of supplies into West Berlin using cargo aircrafts.. In as many as 300 flights over nearly a year planes carried hundreds of tons of food, coal, medicine and other essentials. This terrific campaign served to demonstrate the intention of the Western Allies to protract and to defend West Berlin from the Soviet blockade.

 

The Impact on the Cold War

The Berlin Airlift produced a few important consequences on the already hostile relations between the United States of America and the USSR which increased the setting of the Cold War.

 

1. Representative of Western Tenacity

The successful operation called the Berlin Airlift was an important fact that marked the Western Allies’ readiness to defend their interests and repel Soviet’s encroachments. Since the Soviet Union had blockaded West Berlin and cut off all supplies, supplying the people of West Berlin confirmed the United States’ stand in the fight for democratic had spirit against Soviets’ communism domineering.

 

2. Formation of NATO

Therefore the Berlin Airlift was vital in the creation of NATO, which was established in 1949. The Western Allies also felt compelled to build an alliance that would be loosely based on containing Soviet threat. It made the western ally more confident in a united defensives approach and Bond the fellow member nations in ways.

 

3. Division of Germany

The Airlift through the dropping of the supplies into Berlin locked the fate of Germany into two; East and West. We find that the question of peaceful reunion was gradually declining because of political and ideological contradictions between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union. This division was to pave way for the geographical split between West and East Germany right up to the year of the tearing down of the Berlin wall in 1989.

 

4. Soviet American relations tense up with cold war.

The Berlin Airlift became one of the focal reasons that increased the tension of the Cold War. This can be considered the defining moment of the US and Soviet Union partnership, as it set them with an even wider gap in ideologies, and an arms race. The Soviets’ actions made America feel insecure, thus increasing its armed forces and Not Eisenhower and America just stood back and let Soviet expand and threaten the world.

 

Conclusion

Historically the Cold War is considered in the light of a number of significant factors and one of them was the event of the Berlin Airlift. It reflected the Western Allies intention to resist further aggressions by Soviet and defend the principles of democracy and freedom. The successful carrying out the airlift played a significant role in the formulation of NATO, division of Germany and the rise of tension between Moscow and America. Thus, an analysis of the events of the Berlin Airlift helps to appreciate exactly what the Cold War was all about, as well as the overall impact of that decisive period in the history of the world.

 

How Did the Berlin Airlift Lead to the Cold War?