The Berlin Blockade and Airlift

Lesson starter:1. Describe the Truman Doctrine.2. What was Marshall Aid?

Today we will…

• Understand the events of the Berlin Blockade

• Identify how the Allies overcame the Blockade

• As we know, Berlin was divided into four occupied zones

• People in Berlin were badly affected by shortages and starvation

• Marshall Aid meant that dollars were flooding into ¾ of Germany

• The Allies relied on the Soviets letting them through their ¼ to get to their part of Berlin

Stalin

• Already annoyed at West for new currency Deutschmark

• Allied convoys of food and materials started to get held up at checkpoints

• Then vital bridges & autobahn were ‘closed for repairs’

• By 24 June 1948,all land routes to Berlin were closed

• Truman wrote in his diary ‘we are very close to war’

• Stalin wanted to ‘flex his muscles’ and show the USA he was powerful

• Only way was an airlift• Three narrow air

corridors were set up to Berlin

• Conditions were bad – ice, fog etc – 79 Allied pilots killed

• Russian fighter planes followed Allied Planes in case they flew off course

• Berliners welcomed planes with open arms

• Soviets tried to bribe people to move east with extra rations of vegetables and coal

• 3% accepted• Soviets also cut off electricity in

Berlin

.

.

Punch Cartoon of showing the Berlin Airlift

The end of the Blockade

• The Airlift ended after talks in May 1949• Conflict had been avoided• Eastern part of Berlin stayed Communist• In May the French British and Americans

combined their zones to form the Federal Republic of West Germany

• The Iron Curtain that Churchill had talked about had fallen across Europe

• Berlin Airlift Clips

Today we will…

• Understand the events of the Berlin Blockade

• Identify how the Allies overcame the Blockade