Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The Berlin Airlift

Episode Date: September 14, 2022

On June 24, 1948, the Soviet Union placed a blockade on Berlin's American, British, and French-occupied zones.  No food, fuel, or supplies could enter the area known as West Berlin.  Many people thought that either the allies would have to capitulate or engage in an armed conflict. However, the Americans and British eventually figured out another way around the blockade. Learn more about the Berlin Airlift and how it shaped post-war Europe on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Subscribe to the podcast!  https://link.chtbl.com/EverythingEverywhere?sid=ShowNotes -------------------------------- Executive Producer: Darcy Adams Associate Producers: Peter Bennett & Thor Thomsen   Become a supporter on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/everythingeverywhere Update your podcast app at newpodcastapps.com Discord Server: https://discord.gg/UkRUJFh Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/everythingeverywhere/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EverythingEverywhere Twitter: https://twitter.com/everywheretrip Website: https://everything-everywhere.com/everything-everywhere-daily-podcast/ Everything Everywhere is an Airwave Media podcast." or "Everything Everywhere is part of the Airwave Media podcast network Please contact [e-mail] to advertise on Everything Everywhere. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On June 24, 1948, the Soviet Union placed a blockade on Berlin's American, British, and French-occupied zones. No food, fuel, or supplies could enter the area known as West Berlin. Many people thought that either the Allies would have to capitulate or engage in an armed conflict. However, the American and British eventually figured out another way around the blockade. Learn more about the Berlin airlift and how it shaped post-war Europe on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. What if your perceptions about the past were wrong? ThruLine is a podcast that takes you back in time to uncover the parts of the story that may have gone unnoticed. It effectively turned day into night.

And how it shaped the world now. Time travel with us every week on the Thurline podcast from NPR. To understand why the Berlin airlift happened, we have to turn the clock back several years to understand what was happening in post-line. war Germany. As the war was nearing its end, the ally leaders met in the town of Yalta in the Crimean Peninsula to plan what the post-war order was going to look like in Europe. The primary thing that the powers agreed on was that Germany would be divided amongst the allies. Each country would be given a zone that they would control, and the Americans and British eventually agreed that they would give part of their zone to the French. In addition to dividing up Germany,

Berlin itself would be divided amongst the four powers into zones of control. And likewise, Austria would be divided into four zones, as was its capital Vienna. One thing that all the Allies could agree on was that after two world wars, Germany couldn't be allowed to become a military power again. At the Potsdam Conference in August of 1945, after the war, further agreements about Germany's future were made. The SA, the SS, the Gestapo, the German army, the Navy, and every other institution that existed in Germany were disbanded,

and all Nazi laws were nullified. The desire to punish Germany after the war among some people was quite high. For example, the United States Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Morgenthau, proposed a plan whereby Germany would be totally deindustrialized and revert back to an agrarian society. When Germany was finally divided up, Berlin lay entirely within the Soviet zone of Germany. The four powers created a board known as the Allied Control Authority, which was responsible for the administration of Germany.

They functioned as both an executive and legislative branch, with each allied power managing affairs within their respective zones. Most importantly, all four members had to act unanimously for the control authority to take action. Pretty quickly, riffs began to develop between the Soviets and the other three countries. One of the things that the Allies agreed to in Yalta was that there would be democratic elections in Germany. In October of 1946, elections were held for the Berlin City Council. These were the only Berlin-wide elections held between the end of the war and the reunification of Germany. Voter turnout was exceptionally high at 92.3 percent, and it did not go well for the party backed by the Soviets. The Social Democrats took home 48.7 percent of the vote, and the Christian Democrats took 22.2 percent of the vote.

These two political parties would become the two primary parties in West Germany. The Free Democratic Party took 9.3 percent of the vote, and the Soviet-backed Socialist Unity Party, which became the basis of the East German Communist Party, got only 19.8% of the vote. So with a 93% turnout, over 80% of the voters rejected the Soviets. On top of that, the Americans, British, and French had very different ideas for the future of Germany. The Western Allies eventually concluded that they needed a stronger Germany, which could take part in rebuilding and defending Europe. Moreover, they feared that if Germany unified as a neutral country, it would eventually just fall under Soviet domination.

The Soviets, on the other hand, didn't want to see a unified Germany for defensive reasons. They saw it as a threat when the Americans and British merged their zones on January 1st of 1947. The new zone was known as the bi-zone. The Americans and British spent 1947 and the first part of 1948, preparing for the launch of a new currency. The German economy was in shambles, the old world, Reichs mark was near worthless, and black markets were running the country. In 1948, relations between the Soviets and the Western Allies deteriorated rapidly. The Western Allies held two conferences in London about the future of Germany, which the Soviets

did not attend. On March 20th, the Soviets walked out of an Allied Control Council meeting and never returned. And on March 25th, the Soviets ordered the restriction on passenger rail travel and then announced that all cargo transportation going in or out of Berlin was to be searched by Soviet troops. Throughout April, transportation was harassed to and from Berlin and ushered in what became known as the Little Airlift. Twenty flights a day began to fly food and supplies to Berlin. The Americans and British also introduced their new currency called the Deutsche mark on June 18th, which the Soviets forbid to be used in their zone. And the next day, all automobile auto bond traffic to Berlin from the West was halted by Soviet troops, as well as all passenger

rail travel. On June 21st, the Deutsche mark was introduced, and on June 22, the Soviets announced the East German mark. And also on June 22nd, they sent a message to the British and Americans, stating, quote, we are warning both you and the population of Berlin that we shall apply economic and administrative sanctions that will lead to the circulation in Berlin exclusively of the currency of the Soviet occupation zone. End quote. On June 24th, all rail, road, and river connections to West Berlin were blocked. And on June 25th, food shipments to West Berlin were halted, and electricity was cut off as well.

West Berlin was effectively cut off from the rest of the world. West Berlin was estimated to have only 36 days worth of food and 45 days worth of coal. The western part of the city had an estimated 2 million people. The Western Allies, which I'm just going to refer to as the Allies from now on, didn't have any legal agreement for land transportation through the Soviet zone to get to West Berlin. They had just been relying on the goodwill of the Soviets. The action took the Americans by surprise. Some generals felt that this was a cause-a-spell-eye and a reason to go to war.

However, at this point, no one wanted another major war having just finished a Second World War, not to mention that there was now a risk of atomic weapons being used. At the same time, President Truman insisted that they could not lose control of West Berlin, because if they lost Berlin, they would lose Germany, and if they lost Germany, they could lose all of Western Europe. The Americans and British quickly realized the only solution to this problem was to bring supplies to West Berlin by air. On June 25, the Americans and British launched Operation Vittles. Post-war agreements allowed the Allies three air corridors to West Berlin, a northern route from the cities of

Hamburg and Bremen, a central route from Hanover-Duseldorf and Cologne, and a southern route from Frankfurt-Stuttgart and Munich. The Americans were flying into Templehof Airport, and the British flew into R-A-F-based Gatau. The French built a new airport in their sector called Tegel Airport. They also implemented a counter-blockade on all supplies going into East Germany. The aircraft which were used were primarily C-54 and C-47 cargo aircraft. It took a few weeks to get a system in place to really start delivering supplies. In the first week, only about 90 tons a day were delivered. However, more aircraft were quickly brought into service, and an organized system was developed to move planes and supplies quickly. In the second week, a thousand tons a day were being delivered.

A system was created whereby a plane would take off every four minutes, and each plane would fly 1,000 feet higher than the plane in front of it, every five planes. The system was known as the latter. Within two months, there were 5,000 tons of supplies being flown into West Berlin on 1,500 flights a day. Everything was being flown into the city, milk, wheat, medicine, clothing, you name it. However, the single biggest product being flown into Berlin was coal. In fact, two-thirds of all shipments by weight were coal.

And here I need to express just how, inefficient transportation by air is compared to transporting by rail or barge, especially when you're dealing with bulk items like coal. The cost of shipping a ton of anything by air is vastly more costly than shipping it almost any other way. The Soviets initially mocked the airlift by saying it was just, quote, the futile attempts of the Americans to save face and maintain their untenable position in Berlin. End quote. The airlift quickly got more efficient. More planes were added. and flight schedules became tighter, dropping to just three minutes between takeoffs. Teams on the ground in West Berlin became better and better at unloading cargo from flights.

The ground crews were all local Berliners, and they eventually reached a point where they could unload a plane in under 10 minutes. Some flights were carrying coal would just dump the coal in a field at a low altitude rather than taking the time to land. Life in West Berlin was hard during the blockade, but morale remained high. During the blockade's winter, there was a saying that, Berlin was cold, but Siberia was colder. One of the most famous parts of the airlift came from an American pilot by the name of Gail Halverson. One day after landing, he went into Berlin and encountered a group of children. He gave them his last two sticks of gum and was impressed at how the children shared it and didn't fight over it.

He promised them the next time that he flew to Berlin, he would bring more candy. The children asked him how they would know it was him, and he said he would wiggle his wings. The next day, he dropped candy bars out of the plane as it was landing with handkerchief parachutes attached. Every day, more and more children showed up at the end of the runway to get candy that he would drop. He became known as Uncle Wiggle Wings. His superior officer was initially upset, but eventually General William Tunner, who was the commander of the entire airlift, heard about it and gave his approval. In fact, he expanded the candy drops, calling at Operation Little Vittles.

Candy manufacturers eventually donated candy. and it was a huge public relations success. Over the entire course of the airlift, over three tons of candy were dropped to the children of Berlin. Everyone thought that the airlift was going to be a temporary thing, but as the months dragged on, the airlift became more efficient, and the Allies proved that they could keep it up indefinitely. In one 24-hour period,

from noon on April 15th to noon on April 16th, 1949, 12,941 tons of coal was delivered on 1,000, 383 flights. The Soviets eventually realized that the blockade wasn't working. Moreover, the Allied counter blockade was hurting East Germany just as much because the coal was all in West Germany. The lack of coal was preventing East German factories from operating. And it was also a PR disaster for the Soviets blocking food and medicine for two million

people. After the record day on April 15th, the Soviets announced that they were willing to end the blockade. The two sides went into negotiations, and the Blossackade. blockade of West Berlin formerly ended just after midnight on May 12, 1949. On May 23, 1949, the nation of West Germany was officially created. Even though the blockade ended, the airlift actually kept going for several months as a safety precaution. Within a few months of the blockade ending, West Berlin had a three-month surplus of

supplies, giving them a cushion should they ever need to restart the airlift. The Berlin airlift officially ended on September 30th, 1949. The airlift wasn't without a cost. 39 British and 31 American airmen died during the course of the airlift. The blockade of West Berlin and the subsequent airlift can be thought of as the beginning of the Cold War. It was the event that caused the post-war split between the former World War II Allies. If you're ever in Berlin, you can visit the Allied Museum, which documents the history of Berlin from 1945 to 1950, and they have some of the original airplanes used during the airlift on display.

In the end, over the course of 15 months, 2,326,000 tons of supplies were transported on 278,000 flights, which flew 92 million miles or 148 million kilometers. If it wasn't for the Berlin airlift, the entire post-war history of Europe would have looked remarkably different. Everything Everywhere Daily is an Airwave Media podcast. The executive producer is Darcy Adams, The associate producers are Thornton and Peter Bennett. I just wanted to extend a big thank you to everyone who is supporting the show over at patreon.com. I have show merchandise available there, including hoodies, t-shirts, and stickers. Plus, it really just helps me get this show out every single day, including, of course, weekends and holidays. Remember, if you leave a review or send me a boostagram, you too can have it read on the show.