Transcript Berlin Blockade and Airlift - Dr. Charles Best Secondary

Berlin Airlift & NATO
•How did the Berlin Airlift and NATO
contribute to increasing tensions of the
Cold War?
C) Berlin Blockade and Airlift (10min)
June 1948 - May 1949
Factors Causing the Blockade
1. Marshall Plan
2. Union of Western German (Bizonia) states
creating its own currency
•
Eastern European countries would buy Western
Germany currency which devalues the Eastern
European currency
3. Differing aims for Germany
•
•
Russia wants it to crumble
US/ BR want to rebuild its economy
Therefore, Russia blocks off surface routes from
Western Germany to West Berlin
Federal Republic of
Germany
Berlin
Blockade
1948- 49
Report on
Negotiations
with Soviets, ca.
1948
http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/berlin_airlift/large/documents/index.php?pagenumber=1
&documentdate=1948-00-00&documentid=3-3&studycollectionid=Berlin
General Lucius Clay
• Called for armed
convoys to push
through the blockade
• Plan was never
implemented
• American ground
forces in Europe were
not strong enough to
defeat the USSR
Berlin Airlift
• US decides not to start a war and decides to send
supplies to West Berlin by air (British proposal)
• Shows the resolve of the US to keep West Berlin
C-47: Used to carry supplies
(3.5 tons each)
“Little Lift”
• Using the C-47s in
April 1948 (102 C47s available)
• Gatow and
Tempelhof used as
landing strips
• Back in November
30, 1945, it was
agreed in writing,
that there would be
three 20-mile wide
air corridors
providing access to
the city
1948
"Operation Vittles”
"Operation Plane Fare"
• 3,475 tons of supplies were
needed daily to keep the
over 2 million people alive
3475 ÷ 3.5 (capacity of C-47) =
approximately 1000 flights/day
needed!!!
• Coal was the largest
necessity (industries)
• Later in June, C-54’s were
used (10 tons) – faster too
• Spacing of 3 minutes, both
types of planes were used
Increasing tension
June 28, 1948
• US flies 60 B-29 bombers to Britain
– B-29s were the atomic bomb carriers
– But the US had no readily available atomic
bombs (Stalin doesn’t know this)
Airlift Facts
•
•
•
•
•
•
The blockade lasted 318 days (11 months)
In the winter of 1948–49 Berliners lived on dried potatoes, powdered eggs
and cans of meat
4 hours of electricity/day
275,000 flights carried over 1½ million tons of supplies (2.3 million with
Britain)
On 16 April 1949, 1400 flights brought in 13,000 tons of supplies in one day
Some pilots dropped chocolate and sweets
Candy Drops
Significance
• May 1929 Soviets end the blockade
– They did not want war either
• Airlift continues for a few more months to stock
Berlin in case of another blockade
• 2.5 million West Berliners saved without violence
• US would see the importance of air transport
and increases production of transport planes
• Template for Cold War conflicts – push to the
point of war but drawing back just before
(“Brinkmanship”)
• Leads to the creation of NATO
D) NATO – North Atlantic Treaty
Organization
• Truman Doctrine = political warning
• Marshal Plan = economic resistance
• NATO = military alliance
– US, Canada, Iceland, Denmark, Norway,
Portugal, Italy, Britain, France, Belgium, the
Netherlands and Luxembourg
Reasons for
NATO
• Protection from
“unprovoked” attack
• Russian communism
posed a threat to
democracy
Reasons for
NATO
• Protection from
“unprovoked” attack
• Russian communism
posed a threat to
democracy
NATO
• America to
be its
leader
• Headquart
ers in Paris
Significance
• Organized defence of the West
• European-American cooperation – total
end of isolationism
• First American peace time military alliance
• Soviets will respond with the Warsaw Pact
in 1955
Essay Assignment
•
•
•
•
Truman Doctrine
Marshall Plan
Berlin Blockade/Airlift
NATO
To what extent do the actions of the USA between 19451949 reflect a policy of containment towards
communism?
OR
To what extent were the Americans/ Russians responsible
for escalating Cold War tensions between 1945-1949?
(causes and effects)