The Berlin Blockade/Airlift 1948
Notes:
Blockade:
- Began with currency reforms in West Germany
- Russians block the transportation routes into Berlin
- Allies had to decide to give up Berlin or make other plans
- War was an option
Air Lift:
- Instead the US decided on a massive airlift to supply the western half of the city
- One aircraft lands every two minutes for fifteen months
- It became a public relations victory and a show of US industrial might
- Example of the Truman Doctrine
- One cause for the formation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organziation (NATO)
SUMMARY :
Currency was brought into the west. The Russians blocked of the railway tracks into Berlin. So they decided to fly all the supplies in, 24hours a day for 15 months. And they still lived better then the east.
Quotes:
"We had no guns, only flour"
-Unknown airlift pilot
-Unknown airlift pilot
Subjunctive questions:
Without the berlin airlift would NATO have still been formed? Or was it always a plan?