How The Berlin Airlift Saved 2.5 Million People and Started the Cold War

At the end of World War II, Germany was in economic ruin. Its reparations debt tothe Soviet Union was crushing, and its infrastructure was in ruins, crippling its manufacturing capacity.The USSR, France, Great Britain, and the United States had also split Germany into eastern, southwestern,northwestern, and southern parts. Together, these major Allied powers took on the task of governing andrebuilding Germany (Lange). However, the other Allied powers did not realize that the Soviets intended tomake Germany a buffer against capitalism and push the Western countries out of Germany. The Soviets tookfactories and vehicles as reparations from east Germany, inflated the eastern German economy by printinghuge amounts of Reichsmarks, and used secret police to suppress dissent (“Berlin Blockade: TheBeginning of the Cold War - International Instance”). However, the other western countries did notpassively accept this. Without Stalin’s approval, they decided to implement a new German currencycalled the Deutschmark that rendered the eastern German currency invalid in West Germany, and this pushedhim over the edge. He decided to blockade Berlin since it was located in the eastern Soviet portion ofGermany. The Western powers could not supply the Western side of Berlin anymore. They were presented withtwo options: break the blockade, potentially causing another war, or retreat, callously abandoning the WestBerliners (History.com Editors). However, Truman ambitiously called for an airlift that would attempt tofeed the West Berliners. It succeeded; the Berlin Airlift overcame logistical difficulties, Sovietintervention, and animosities between Germans and Americans in order to feed and supply the 2.5 millionBerliners after World War II, and it started the Cold War as well by establishing its sides and illustratinghow its battles would be fought.

On June 26, 1948, Operation Vittles started off as a small airlift that overcamelogistical issues through its growth in size, its construction of more airfields, and its flightorganization to supply West Berlin (Halverson). Operation Vittles started off as an airlift because althoughthe roads and rails were blocked, the airspace was not: if the Soviets wanted to stop the airlift, theywould need to shoot down the planes, which would be an act of war. Neither side wanted a war, so an airliftwas the most strategic choice (Truman). The airlift would require heavy manpower; the Allies calculated thatthey would need nearly 5,000 tons of food and fuel per day to supply West Berlin! At first, the planes theUS airlifted random assortments of supplies to Germany. The organization of the flights was messy, and as aresult the pilots were not able to fully supply Berlin (Rogers).

However, this changed in 1948 when Brigadier General William Tunner took chargeof the operation. He first collaborated with other nations for access to more planes. While the US had manyplanes left over from the war, it took the combined might of five nations—the United States, GreatBritain, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand—to meet the necessary transportation requirements.Nevertheless, many problems still plagued the operation. The American airport at Tempelhof was a grass fieldthat was also partially obstructed by tall buildings, making landing and takeoff treacherous. Hence, 17,000Berliners worked to construct a 5,500-foot runway for planes to land safely. Tunner also organized theairlift operation, with planes taking off and landing at 3-minute intervals and German ground crews. He alsoprohibited aircrew members from leaving their aircraft, and had jeeps sent out as mobile snack stations tohand out refreshments so the pilots could take off immediately after eating (“William H. Tunner– Berlin Airlift Logistics Genius”). The Berlin Airlift overcame many logistical issues to meetthe quota of 5,000 tons of food per day, but the Soviets were not going to easily let them do so.

At first, the Soviets viewed the airlift as a chance to show the failures ofcapitalism and planned to disrupt it as much as they could without starting a war. Stalin believed that itwas impossible to feed the 2.5 million West Berliners, but as the airlift continued, he tried many tacticsto interrupt the operation. During the first flight, Stalin had threatened that his anti-aircraft guns wouldopen fire and shoot down the planes. However, it was a bluff; instead, he decided to send Soviet Yakfighters to annoy the American planes (Lange). Soviet anti-aircraft and live fire “exercises”also clouded the air corridors with deadly flak and bullets, but never actually shot down a plane. Theywould also try to jam their radios and follow each non-Soviet plane to its destination. The Soviets alsoengaged in intense psychological warfare with Communist broadcasts on radio proclaiming the imminent fall ofBerlin to the USSR (Perera). However, they were unable to completely stop the airlift, and as an unintendedresult, they helped the relationship between the German people and the Allies.

The Berlin Airlift also overcame animosities between Germany and other Westerncountries. At first, before the airlift was able to meet its quota, Berliners were ready to join theSoviets. They would rather be fed in a dictatorship than starve in a democracy. They also looked at theAllies with contempt, as they had recently bombed and destroyed most of Germany in World War II. However, asthe airlift started to grow under General Tunner, many Berliners started to see the Allies in a new light.What truly illuminates the cultural divide is the experience of Lieutenant Gail Halvorsen. One day in July1948, Lieutenant Halvorsen met 30 kids at the barbed wire fence at Tempelhof in Berlin. He decided to givethem his two sticks of gum, and the children tore the gum into pieces and passed it around to everyone sothat everyone could smell it.

Source: Alamy, John. Picture of West Berlin childrenwatching a supply plane. 1983. Find A Grave. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/imageserver/image/methode%2Ftimes%2Fprod%2Fweb%2Fbin%2F400abc06-3523-11e9-a129-05a1d4d7c2a2.jpg?crop=2460%2C1640%2C0%2C0

He was incredibly moved and promised to return with more candy, and that they wouldknow when he arrived through his wiggling the wings of his plane. He would later drop more candy, andGeneral Tunner saw the positive press potential in his selfless act. He decided to expand the candyoperation, and soon sent Halvorsen on a press tour in the US. The Berlin airlift finally had a public face,and it also offered a moral justification for supporting the airlift. US citizens and candy manufacturersprovided 13,000 pounds of treats, and he would later drop a whopping 21 tons of candy for West Berliners(“Gails Story”). This small act connected Americans with Germans and restored German confidencein the Americans (“Child of the Airlift”). This act was also crucial politically, as it gave theGerman people the confidence to align with the ideals of the West.

As the airlift grew more successful, the pressure on Stalin to end the blockadewas also building. The Allies had enacted a counter-blockade, and East Berlin factories could not keepfunctioning without goods from the Western sector. On May 12th, 1949, the blockade ended (Office of theHistorian). Stalin’s plan had backfired; he had allowed the Allies to take the moral high ground anddemonstrate their commitment to the German people, which gave the Germans more reason to align with theWest. Furthermore, Stalin’s willingness to starve the German people to try and conquer them spokevolumes about what the USSR was willing to do to achieve its ends, and as a result Western Europe created acoalition to contain Western influence (Rogers). The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, still functioningtoday, would define the sides of the Cold War (NATO). The first major conflict of the Cold War, the BerlinBlockade, had also divided Germany into a unified Western German state and a Communist Eastern German State.The creation of NATO and the ideological shift of East and West Berlin also created the Iron Curtain, whichwas a political boundary dividing Europe between the Soviet Union with its allies and the West and itsallied states. The Berlin Blockade would also establish how the Cold War would be fought. After the creationof NATO, which was a coalition of Western countries, both sides threatened all-out war if either sideattacked the other. Thus, the Cold War developed as a war fought between proxies, using threats andrestraint (“Berlin Blockade: The Beginning of the Cold War - International Instance”). Inconclusion, the Berlin Airlift had not only saved 2.5 million Berliners from starvation after facinglogistical issues, Soviet intervention, and German animosity, but also had dictated how the Cold War wouldbe fought and established its sides.

Works Cited

“A Child of the Airlift.” Www.fu-Berlin.de, 5 June 2013,www.fu-berlin.de/en/sites/kennedy/zeitzeugen/sass-viehweger/index.html#__target_object_not_reachable.Accessed 12 May 2022.

“Berlin Blockade: The Beginning of the Cold War - InternationalInstance.” 6 Aug. 2021, internationalinstance.com/berlin-blockade-the-beginning-of-the-cold-war/.Accessed 26 Apr. 2022.

“Gails Story.” The Candy Bomber: Gail S. Halvorsen Aviation EducationFoundation, www.thecandybomber.org/gails-story/. Accessed 26 Apr. 2022.

Halvorsen, Gail S. The Berlin Candy Bomber. Springville, Utah, Horizon Publishers, AnImprint Of Cedar Fort, Inc, 2017. Accessed 26 Apr. 2022.

History.com Editors. “Berlin Airlift.” HISTORY, A&E TelevisionNetworks, 12 Sept. 2018, www.history.com/topics/cold-war/berlin-airlift. Accessed 26 Apr. 2022.

Lange, Katie. “The Berlin Airlift: What It Was, Its Importance in the ColdWar.” U.S. Department of Defense, 25 June 2018, www.defense.gov/News/Inside-DOD/Blog/article/2062719/the-berlin-airlift-what-it-was-. Accessed 26 Apr. 2022.

NATO. “What Is NATO?” NATO, 2009, www.nato.int/nato-welcome/index.html.

Office of The Historian. “Milestones: 1945–1952 - Office of theHistorian.” State.gov, 2019, history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/berlin-airlift. Accessed 26 Apr.2022.

Perera, Ayesh“Berlin Blockade and Airlift - 1948 | World History Blog.”www.worldhistoryblog.com, www.worldhistoryblog.com/Berlin_Blockade_and_airlift.html. Accessed 12Apr. 2022.

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Rogers, Brandon. “The Logistical Nightmare Known as the Berlin Airlift.”History Things, 18 July 2020,historythings.com/logistical-nightmare-know-berlin-airlift/#:~:text=The%20Berlin%20Airlift%20was%20one%20of%20the%20biggest.Accessed 12 Apr. 2022.

Truman, Harry. “National Security Council Memo Re: Possible Soviet Interruptionof Airlift | Harry S. Truman.” Www.trumanlibrary.gov,www.trumanlibrary.gov/library/research-files/national-security-council-memo-re-possible-soviet-interruption-airlift?documentid=NA&pagenumber=6. Accessed 26 Apr. 2022.

“William H. Tunner – Berlin Airlift Logistics Genius.” Walled inBerlin, 6 Aug. 2018, walled-in-berlin.com/j-elke-ertle/william-h-tunner-berlin-airlift-logistics-genius/.Accessed 12 Apr. 2022.