[New post] TODAY IN HISTORY: Berlin Blockade Lifted
larryhappiday1 posted: " May 12, 1949, the Soviet Union lifted the Berlin Blockade Following the Yalta Conference in February 1945 and the Potsdam Conference later that year, the defeated Germany was divided into four occupation zones by the United States, Britain, France, a" Asoya Relationship Musings - ARM
May 12, 1949, the Soviet Union lifted the Berlin Blockade
Following the Yalta Conference in February 1945 and the Potsdam Conference later that year, the defeated Germany was divided into four occupation zones by the United States, Britain, France, and the Soviet Union. Being abandoned by political forces with a different worldview alarmed the Soviet Union.
BERLIN: Theatre of Ideological Contest.
But while the Soviet Union and its Western Allies' goals had coincided throughout the war, they soon started to differ, especially regarding the future of Germany. The Soviet Union, under the direction of Joseph Stalin, planned to economically punish Germany by making it pay war reparations and provide its industrial technology to aid the Soviet Union's postwar reconstruction.
The Allies, on the other hand, believed that for Germany to remain a democratic barrier against the spread of communism from Eastern Europe, where Stalin had established his Soviet sphere of influence, its economy needed to revive.
The Berlin Blockade was an effort by the Soviet Union in 1948 to restrict access for travellers from the United States, Great Britain, and France to their respective parts of Berlin, which were wholly located inside Russian-occupied East Germany. The Soviet Union blocked all rail, road, and canal access to the western zones of Berlin out of concern over the new American policy of providing economic aid to Germany and other economically struggling European countries, as well as the Western Allies' efforts to impose a single currency in the zones they occupied in Germany and Berlin. Suddenly, around 2.5 million residents were without access to critical necessities like food, medication, gasoline, and electricity.
Now unable to freely distribute supplies to the whole of Berlin, western countries resorted to airlifting those goods across the blocked road and waterways. West Berlin received essential supplies and assistance for nearly one-year through this airlift launched by Western countries. Seeing the fruitlessness of the blockade, the Soviet Union ended it on May 12, 1949.
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