Summary Cold War IEB History Part 2

The Cold War Part II

The Berlin Blockade, 1948

Build-up To The Blockade
 In 1948 the Cold War almost became a ‘hot’ war when the Soviet Union
disagreed with the Western allies about the future of Germany
o For the past three years Germany had been a divided country
between Russia who controlled East Germany and East Berlin and
the Allies (France, Britain and the USA) who controlled West
Germany and West Berlin
 The Soviet and Western allies ran their zones very differently
o The Soviet Zone:
 Stalin wanted to keep Germany weak and divided so that it
could never attack the Soviet Union again
 He also wanted Germany to pay the cost of repairing war
damage
 It was run as a communist zone
o The Allied Forces Zone:
 The Allies ran their zones along capitalist lines
 They wanted their zones to recover quickly from the war
 They believed a strong Germany would help the rest of
Europe recover
 They tried to encourage German businesses to grow
 They established the Deutschmark to replace the
inflated and overcirculated Mark currency
 Before long output has risen and West Germany was
extremely strong
 Stalin decided to force the Western allies to leave Berlin in June 1948
o He was fed up with the West and wanted to starve them out
 This would illustrate that containment had failed
 Stalin disliked the Western presence in West Berlin because
it allowed Western allies to keep their forces inside of the
Soviet Zone of Germany
o Soviet forces closed all railways, roads and canals leading from
their zone into the Western sectors of the city
o This immediately cut off all food and fuel supplies
 The people of West Berlin faced starvation

What was the Allied response?
The Allies refused to abandon Berlin. If West Berlin was taken then surely
Western Germany would be next and the domino effect would continue.
 They were left with a few options:
o Do Nothing
 However this would make the West seem weak and failing

,  It would be a serious demonstration of the failure of
containment
o Invade West Berlin
 However if they did ram the road blocks or railway blocks,
this would be seen as an act of war
o Airlift
 However the planes could be shot down
 The Allies however had A bombs and at this point Russia
did not which meant they were not likely to try initiate
conflict
 In the end they gathered together a huge fleet of aircrafts to take food,
coal and clothing to West Berlin along 3 air corridors
o This lasted for almost a year until Stalin gave in and lifted the
blockade in 1949
o This was a symbol that containment was successful

Consequences
 The blockade failed to stop the Allies from strengthening each of their
own individual zones
o In 1949 they joined their zones together to form a new country
known as West Germany (the German Federal Republic)
o Thereafter the Soviet Union named their zone East Germany (the
German Democratic Republic)
 The blockade forced the Western Allies to think about how they should
deal with any future agreements with the Soviet Union
o This led to the formation of NATO in 1949


NATO and the Warsaw Pact

The Formation of NATO

Why did the West feel threatened by the Soviet Union?
 In the immediate aftermath of the war Russia had:
o Supported Communist parties in Eastern Europe
o Extracted reparations from former enemies
o Opposed the creation of a strong German state
o Created a buffer zone of communist states between herself and
Germany
 In 1948 Stalin attempted to starve the Allies out of West Berlin by
implementing the berlin blockade

What was NATO?
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was established in 1949
 It was compromised of several West European countries, the USA and
Canada
 The Western Powers would work together against Russia