Ī further factor contributing to the Blockade was that there had never been a formal agreement guaranteeing rail and road access to Berlin through the Soviet zone. Stalin and other leaders told visiting Bulgarian and Yugoslavian delegations in early 1946 that Germany must be both Soviet and communist. In a June 1945 meeting, Stalin informed German communist leaders that he expected to slowly undermine the British position within their occupation zone, that the United States would withdraw within a year or two and that nothing would then stand in the way of a united Germany under communist control within the Soviet orbit. Factories, equipment, technicians, managers and skilled personnel were removed to the Soviet Union. The SED leaders then called for the "establishment of an anti-fascist, democratic regime, a parliamentary democratic republic" while the Soviet Military Administration suppressed all other political activities. In the eastern zone, the Soviet authorities forcibly unified the Communist Party of Germany and Social Democratic Party in the Socialist Unity Party ("SED"), claiming at the time that it would not have a Marxist-Leninist or Soviet orientation. The only three permissible air corridors to Berlin. The Soviet zone and the Allies' rights of access to Berlin The administration of occupied Germany was coordinated by the Four Power Allied Control Council (ACC). This area had contained much of Germany's fertile land. In addition, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin ordered the incorporation of part of eastern Poland into the Soviet Union, compensating Poland by ceding to it a large portion of Germany east of the Oder-Neisse line. The Soviet zone produced much of Germany's food supply, while the territory of the British and American zones had to rely on food imports even before the war. īerlin was located 100 miles (160 km) inside the Soviet occupation zone. Additionally, the German capital of Berlin was to be divided into four sectors: the French sector, British Sector, American sector and the Soviet sector. These zones were located roughly around the current locations of the allied armies. German territory east of the Oder-Neisse line (light beige) was ceded to Poland, while a portion of the easternmost section of Germany East Prussia, Königsberg, was annexed by the USSR, as the Kaliningrad Oblast.įrom 17 July to 2 August 1945, the victorious Allied Powers reached the Potsdam Agreement on the fate of postwar Europe, calling for the division of defeated Germany into four temporary occupation zones (thus re-affirming principles laid out earlier by the Yalta Conference).
The red area of Germany (above) is Soviet controlled East Germany. 4.2 The Communist putsch in the municipal government.2.3 The April Crisis and the Little Air Lift.1.2 The focus on Berlin and the elections of 1946.1.1 The Soviet zone and the Allies' rights of access to Berlin.Following the airlift, three airports in the former western zones of the city served as the primary gateways to Germany for another fifty years. The Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) and the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) split up Berlin. The blockade was lifted in May 1949 and resulted in the creation of two separate German states. The success of the Berlin Airlift brought embarrassment to the Soviets who had refused to believe it could make a difference. īy the spring of 1949 the effort was clearly succeeding, and by April the airlift was delivering more cargo than had previously been transported into the city by rail. Aircrews from the United States Air Force, the British Royal Air Force, the Royal Canadian Air Force, the Royal Australian Air Force, the Royal New Zealand Air Force, and the South African Air Force :338 flew over 200,000 flights in one year, providing up to 4700 tons of necessities daily, such as fuel and food, to the Berliners. In response, the Western Allies organized the Berlin airlift to carry supplies to the people in West Berlin. Their aim was to force the western powers to allow the Soviet zone to start supplying Berlin with food, fuel, and aid, thereby giving the Soviets practical control over the entire city. During the multinational occupation of post–World War II Germany, the Soviet Union blocked the Western Allies' railway, road, and canal access to the sectors of Berlin under allied control. The Berlin blockade (24 June 1948 – ) was one of the first major international crises of the Cold War. Berliners watch a C-54 Skymaster land at Tempelhof Airport, 1948
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