Photo Library 

'THE BERLIN' AIRLIFT' 

June 24 1948 - September 10th, 1949  / A STEP TO UNIFICATION AND A STRONG DEMOCRACY - 

It is critical to understand the political and physical condition of Berlin three years after World War ll ceased fire.  Located around 120 miles inside of a Russian controlled military zone, the Western Allies, West Berliners and the small cadre of the US Army Security Agency faced the possibility of another war.  Trying to force the three Western Allies managing Berlin out, on June 26th 1948 the Soviet Union military shut down all land and water access to these West Berlin sectors.  When President Truman told the Joint Chiefs of Staff (most of whom wanted to get out) "We stay in Berlin" the bright light of Democracy lit up West Berlin.  What was it like to be one of the seventeen thousand German women and men wearing whatever clothes they had, sometimes slippers and bathing suits, using the rubble of their broken and cruelly hungry city to build a new airfield at Tegel in just ninety two days. Soon enough, German mothers were telling their children that Americans were 'angels in uniforms'. ...this amazing effort did tend to bring out what Abraham Lincoln called "the better angels of our nature".  (THE DARING YOUNG MEN" by Richard Reeve).     “If ever there are monuments raised to commemorate democracy’s victory in the battle of Berlin, there are plenty of heroes to adorn them. In their weary, often grumbling and fumbling way, it was Berlin’s plain people who won the battle.”-  A Time Magazine Correspondent

'BERLIN 1949 - 1961'    THE DIVISION BETWEEN EAST AND WEST BERLIN ON EDGE

     In the 1950's, Berlin was a microcosm of the Cold War.  The eastern half of Berlin was controlled by the Soviet created government of East Germany and the western half of Berlin was occupied and supplied by the United States and its allies.   From the early 1950s, from Czechoslovakia to the Baltic Sea, the border between East and West Germany was made up of barbed wire, fortifications, and guards.  With the closing of the Inner German border in 1952, the border to Berlin was still accessible administered by the four occupying powers.  In 1955, the Russians gave East Germany authority over civilian movement in East Berlin as It had become the main route for East Germans to leave for the West.  On Dec. 11, 1957, East Germany's new passport law reduced the number of refugees leaving East Germany.

   Tension between East German Workers and their government intensified.  In East Berlin, approximately 40,000  construction workers and supporters protested against an increase in work quotas.  These protests spread throughout the whole Soviet Zone. The East Germans, unable to cope with the situation, called in the Russian troops, supported by tanks.                                                              

   The unintended result had increased the percentage of those leaving through West Berlin.  Many East Germans sought refuge in West Berlin.  West Berlin were less heavily guarded but, though difficult, crossings into the West were possible.  Between 1950 and 1960 the population increased by approximately 1.0 million people.

The 'Brain Drain' of professionals became so damaging to the credibility and economic stability of East Germany that securing the communist frontier was imperative.  The exodus of emigrants from East Germany presented two minor potential benefits: 1) an easy way to smuggle secret agents to West Germany, whose activities were substantially blanketed by our ASA operatives, and a reduction in the number of citizens hostile to the communist regime who brought contact information and professional skills.