Zusammenfassung der Ressource
The Berlin Crisis
- IMPORTANT EVENTS/DATES
- January 1947
- Britain and the USA join their two zones together
- December 1947
- London Conference: America, Britain and France meet
to discuss Germany's future. Russia is not present.
- January 1948
- Russia starts to stop western literature being
sold in the Soviet zone.
- March 1948
- The USA offers Marshall Aid. Stalin forbids Cominform countries to take part.
- April 1948
- Russia imposes a partial blockade of west Berlin
- Allied transport into the city has to apply for a permit and is inspected
- 1st June 1948
- America, Britain and France announce they wanted to
create a new country of West Germany
- 23rd June 1948
- America, Britain and France introduce a new currency
- This causes economic chaos in the Russian zone
- Everyone tries to get rid of their old money and change to the new currency
- SUMMARY
- 1. In 1945, the Allies decided to split Germany into four zones of occupation
- Berlin, was also split into four zones
- USSR took huge reparations
from its zone, but the other
three zones tried to improve
conditions in their area.
- USSR were trying to cripple Germany
- To prevent future attacks
- 2. In June 1948, Britain, France and America united their zones into a new country
- "West Germany"
- 3. 23 June 1948, UK,US, FR introduce a new currency
- To help trade
- 4. 24 June 1948, Stalin creates the Berlin Blockade
- Cutting off all rail/road links to West Berlin
- West sees this as an attempt to
starve Berlin into surrender
- They decided to supply West Berlin by air
- The Berlin Blockade lasted 318 days
- 275,000 planes transported 1.5 million tons of supplies and a plane
landed every three minutes at Berlin's Templehof airport
- 5. 12 May 1949, Stalin abandons the blockade
- RESULTS
- Germany was divided until 1990
- WEST : Federal Republic of Germany
- EAST : Democratic Republic of Germany
- Iron Curtain became permanent
- Official "Cold War" breaks out
- Arms Race begins
- In 1949, the Allies set up the North
Atlantic Treaty Organisation
(NATO)
- A military alliance to resist Soviet Russia
- Many Western countries end up joining
- How is the Berlin airlift is a good example of the Cold War?
- Stalin made the Berlin blockade (closing the land route
into the city) his open, provocative, and threatening
rejection of all the Allied agreements made during WWII
- CAUSES
- Western Allies encouraged the economic recovery of their zones in Germany
- Created the new currency
- Western zones received large quantities of Marshall Aid
- Stalin wanted to keep Westerners out of Berlin
as it was well into the Soviet portion of Germany
- Western countries were determined to remain in Berlin to
observe Soviet activity on the opposite side of the Iron Curtain
- He did not want his people to see the capitalist way of life
- Was fearful of opposition from his people
- BERLIN AIRLIFT
- Following the airlift, the city of
Berlin was divided in half
- East Germany eventually built the
Berlin Wall to keep people from
leaving to go to the West
- To help with moral in the city, pilots would drop
candy attached to little parachutes over Berlin.
- This was called "operation little vittles".
- Over three tons of candy was dropped by the end of the airlift.