The Berlin Blockade and Airlift

The question the whole crisis turns on

In June 1948 the Soviet authorities closed the road, rail and canal routes between the western zones of Germany and the western sectors of Berlin. The city sat deep inside the Soviet zone, and it could not feed or heat itself. The Western powers had three obvious options. Leave. Force a way through on the ground. Or find something else. ⭐ Here is the thing to understand before any of the detail. Neither side wanted a war. So the crisis was not really a contest of strength. It was a contest over WHO WOULD HAVE TO FIRE FIRST. Think about what an armed convoy would have meant. To get through it would have had to shoot at whoever stood in the way, and the Western powers would have been the ones who started the shooting. ⚠️ An aeroplane on an agreed air corridor does the opposite. It carries no threat at all, and stopping it means shooting it down. THE DECISION TO BEGIN A WAR GOES BACK TO THE OTHER SIDE.

What each side was trying to achieve

Before judging any decision in this crisis, be clear what each side was actually after. Both positions were reasonable from where they stood, which is why the crisis was dangerous. Attribute these aims to the side that held them when you write. An examiner rewards that.

Order the crisis

Put these events in the order they happened.

• Germany and Berlin are divided into occupation zones and sectors
• The western zones are merged economically and a new currency is introduced
• Land and water routes into the western sectors of Berlin are closed
• Supplies are flown in along the air corridors, through the winter
• The blockade is lifted and two separate German states are founded

Why an aeroplane and not a convoy

The Western powers considered sending an armed convoy along the road to Berlin and chose to fly supplies instead. What is the strongest explanation?

• A convoy would have had to shoot its way through, making the West the side that started a war, while an unarmed aircraft left that decision to the Soviet side
• Flying supplies in was quicker and cheaper than moving them by road
• The roads were in too poor a condition to carry heavy vehicles
• The Western powers had no military forces available in Germany at all

Words for writing about this crisis

Five terms that let you explain the crisis rather than retell it.

Find the sentence that explains

A student writes about the crisis. Select the ONE sentence that EXPLAINS the Western decision rather than describing or judging it.

• In June 1948 the Soviet authorities closed the land routes into West Berlin.
• This was a cruel thing to do to a city that had already suffered a great deal.
• The Western powers decided to fly supplies in rather than force the road, because an unarmed aircraft could only be stopped by an attack, which left the choice of starting a war with the other side.
• The airlift continued all through the winter and involved a great many flights.
• In the end the blockade was lifted in May 1949.

What the crisis actually produced

Three of these five followed from the crisis. Choose the three.

• Two separate German states were founded in 1949, one in the west and one in the east
• A Western military alliance was formed, committing its members to treat an attack on one as an attack on all
• West Berlin remained under Western control, deep inside the eastern zone
• Germany was reunited under an agreement reached at the end of the blockade
• The Soviet Union withdrew from eastern Germany

A test you can use on every crisis

This period study asks about one confrontation after another. The same question opens most of them. ⭐ After this move, who would have to fire first? A move that forces your opponent to start the shooting is strong even when it looks weak, and a move that obliges YOU to start it is dangerous even when it looks firm. ⚠️ Save it. The same question does a great deal of work on the Berlin Wall and on the Cuban missile crisis, which are the next two crises you will study.

Match the option to what it would have forced

The farmer and the footpath

Leave 1948 for a moment. Two neighbours, a farm track and an argument. A farmer decides that the track crossing his land should no longer be used by the family at the cottage beyond it, and parks a trailer across it. The cottage is not cut off by law: there is an old right of way on foot. But the track is how they get anything heavy in. ⭐ The family have three choices, and they are the same three choices. They can move out, which settles the argument by giving the farmer what he wants. They can drive at the trailer and shove it aside, which means THEY are the ones who damaged property and started the quarrel that follows. Or they can carry everything in on foot, along the path nobody disputes, week after week, in the rain. ⚠️ The third choice is the hardest work and the strongest position, and it is worth being clear why. It does not solve anything. What it does is leave the farmer with only one way to stop them, which is to block a path he has no right to block, in front of witnesses. ⭐⭐ The burden of doing the indefensible thing has been handed over. That is the whole move.

Complete the Berlin crisis facts

In June 1948 the Soviet authorities began a _____ of the western sectors of the city, closing the land and water routes into it. The Western response was an _____, supplying the city along air corridors whose use had been agreed earlier. Its strength was that it avoided _____: an unarmed aircraft could be stopped only by an attack, so the choice of starting a war lay with the other side. The blockade was lifted in May 1949, but the crisis hardened the division, and in the same year two separate German states were founded and a Western military _____ was formed. Berlin itself stayed in Western hands, deep inside the eastern _____, which is why the city produced a further crisis and why Western policy in this period is described as _____.

Build the judgement

Complete an assessment of how successful the Western response was.

Berlin crisis quick-fire

Five quick decisions. Three lives.

Plan an answer on the crisis

A question asks why the Berlin crisis of 1948 to 1949 did not lead to war. Work through the plan.

• What should the backbone of the answer be?
• You want to explain why the Soviet side acted as it did. How should you put it?
• You have a paragraph left. What is the strongest way to finish?

Explain why the crisis did not become a war

Explain why the Berlin crisis of 1948 to 1949 ended without a war between the powers involved.

• Explain what the Soviet side was trying to achieve by closing the routes, attributed to them
• Explain what the Western powers believed they would lose by withdrawing
• Explain how the choice of an airlift changed who would have had to fire first
• Give one consequence of the crisis from 1949
• Finish by saying whether you think the crisis settled anything, and why