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Berlin Airlift
On June 18th, 1948, the British, French, and United States of America announced a proclamation of currency reform in the western zones of postwar Germany. The western nations relied on an economically strong, independent Germany to allow the free flow of trade that was necessary to maintain their robust economies but the Soviets viewed it differently. They preferred a weak Germany, one that they could easily control and that was free from western influence. Stalin wished to turn Germany over to communism to expand his regime. When the idea of a separate currency was introduced the Soviets saw this as a threat to their sector of Germany because this introduction would be likely to destroy trade relations between the east and west. Trade between these two sectors would become, in practice, trade between two separate states since two different currencies would be used.
In a supposed response to this proclamation, the Soviets introduced a blockade starting midnight, June 18th-19th that halted all motor traffic to Berlin on the citys only road link between Berlin and the west. Within days, travel by rail, foot and ship was cut off. The shipment of supplies such as coal, food, fresh milk, and the delivery of electric current from the east were halted as well. This left the citys 2.1 million residents without the basic modern necessities for life.
In return, the British, French and Americans established one of the greatest humanitarian missions of all time. The airlift began on the 24th of June 1948. At first, the Americans effort, headed by General Clay, had access to only 102 C-47s and 2 C-54s. The C-47s were used mainly for supplies such as milk, medicine and fuel. General Clay figured that with his limited supply of aircraft, he could only haul about 300 tons a day while the British estimate was about 750 tons. This mere 1050 tons per day was nowhere near the needed tonnage of supplies, which were about 4500 per day. General Clay and General LeMay (leader of British effort) knew that more of the C-52s would be needed to make a worthy contribution because the small capacity of the C-47 (3.5 tons) was not sufficient. Almost 1300 flights per day would be needed in the C-47 to reach their goal of 4500 tons per day. On June 24th, 52 C-54s were ordered to Berlin and by July 1st, they were taking over the airlift, allowing them to reach their target goal of 4500 tons per day.
Although the leaders of the airlift deserve much credit, the pilots should be greatly commended as well. On November 30th, 1945, it was agreed that there would be three twenty-mile wide air corridors providing access to the city. These were unarguable and meant that the pilots had to conduct precision flight to avoid crossing these barriers. They were also unarmed and under constant threat from Soviet attack. A quote form one pilot states, "We had no guns, only flour." These people also kept flights ongoing, 24 hours a day. An example of their greatest effort was on the 16th of April 1949, where one flight was launched almost every minute. This delivered a total of 1,398 flights and 12, 940 short tons of supplies.
The airlift continued successfully without many complications for seven months. In May 1949, Stalin removed the blockade and reopened access to West Berlin. However, as a precaution, the airlift continued for another four months (a total of eleven) until September.
Although the Berlin Airlift itself proved to be a remarkable event in the history of humanitarian missions, its overall implications concluded to have a longer lasting, more substantial effect. This blockade and airlift was the final straw that caused the separation of Germany into two separate states. The occupation zones of the Western Allies became the German Federal Republic, otherwise known as Western Germany, in May 1949, while the Soviet zone officially became the German Democratic Republic in October.
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History
