Backstory to the Berlin Airlift: An Alliance of "Convenience"

The Western Allies' absurd position at the start of the Berlin Blockade in June 1948 had a long and torturous history. The roots of the crisis stretched back to the Second World War, and the alliance cobbled together to defeat National Socialist (Nazi) Germany. An understanding of the situation in Berlin 1948 requires a closer look at alliance of convenience.

The victorious powers were from the start “strange bed-fellows,” who had been dragged into a wartime alliance they did not want by the aggression of Nazi Germany. Britain had been the first of the four powers to attempt to call a halt to Nazi aggression by declaring war on Germany after its invasion of Poland on Sept. 1, 1939. France reluctantly followed the British lead, but the Soviet Union was at that time an Ally of Nazi Germany, very happy to participate in the invasion and partition of Poland. In the following months, while the Soviet Union engaged in aggression of its own against Finland and the Baltic States, it indulgently tolerated Hitler’s invasion of Norway, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, France, and eventually Greece. Not until the German Wehrmacht rolled across the Soviet border on June 22, 1941 did the Soviet Union recognise and treat Nazi Germany as an enemy.

The United States was the last of the powers to join the conflict. Strict neutrality at the start of the war had turned into open support for the British after Britain's victory in the Battle of Britain and President Franklin Roosevelt’s re-election in the autumn of 1940. Thereafter the United States adopted a policy of increasing support for the UK and, after June 22, 1941, the Soviet Union. This support was primarily financial and economic in the form of loans and supplies, but included military components such as weapons, munitions, and naval escorts for convoys to mid-Atlantic. Nevertheless, the support stopped short of war. America had declared itself the “arsenal of Democracy” but hoped to avoid taking a direct part in the conflict. It was not until the Japanese attack upon Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941 that the U.S. was dragged into the Second World War. Even so it is doubtful whether the United States would have gone to war against Germany, if Hitler had not declared war on the United States on Dec. 11, 1941.

By the time the United States entered the war against Germany, France had been out of the conflict for roughly 18 months. The French Army had surrendered on June 22, 1940 after just six weeks of fighting. A rump puppet state existed in the South of France, while the northern districts were occupied by the Germans. Remnants of the French army, however, had escaped to England and in the French colonies some elements continued to favour the struggle against Germany while others favoured accommodation with the “New World Order” created by Nazi victories. Thus in the critical years when the tide finally turned against Germany and the bloody victories were being won, France was not a significant partner. The three nations that defeated Germany were the British, the Russians and the Americans.

It is important to remember, however, that while the British and Americans shared a common heritage, language, and system of government that made them friends as well as allies, the Russians shared none of these. Furthermore, since its inception in the “Bolshevik Revolution” of 1917, the Soviet Union viewed both Britain and the United States as “arch enemies” – representatives, advocates and instruments of the hated – and, according Communist ideology, doomed - “capitalist” system of “oppression.” The Soviet Union had engaged in ideological warfare against both Britain and the United States throughout its entire existence. The necessity of accepting British and American aid during the near fatal struggle against Nazi Germany had not changed the ideological position of the leadership in the Kremlin in the slightest.

The ideological and political differences between the Anglo-American Allies and the Soviet Union were reflected in their war aims. Even before the U.S. entry into the war, the British and Americans had agreed upon their post-war vision. Namely: no territorial aggrandisement by the victors and the right of liberated peoples to self-determination.

The Soviet Union never subscribed to these aims. On the contrary, Stalin made his goals explicit in a statement to the Yugoslav communist leader Tito in 1944 when he stated: “whoever occupies a country also imposes his own system. Everyone imposes his own system as far as his army has power to do.” Thus while the Western Allies prepared to march into Germany thinking that their job was to eliminate an aggressor and free the way for a restoration of the status quo ante, the Soviet Union saw the Second World War as a continuation of their fundamental struggle against the capitalist system. While the Soviet Union might have been forced into tactical retreat or alliances – whether with Hitler’s Germany or the Capitalist powers of Great Britain and the United States - at no time did the Soviet Union given up its long-term goal of World Communism.

In the short term, however, the Soviet Union was dependent on American food, supplies and equipment to sustain its fighting capabilities, and furthermore unable to drive the Germans off its territory without incurring unsustainable casualties. In short, it needed Western help to defeat the Nazi threat. Under these circumstances it was forced to compromise with the West. It was in this period of pre-victory co-operation with the West that a series of decisions were taken concerning the future administration of a soon-to-be-defeated Germany. These decisions were taken incrementally during a series of wartime meetings between the respective heads of government and in committee at the working level. The result was consensus on the fact that Germany would be occupied jointly by the three victorious parties (Britain, the Soviet Union and the United States), and that that joint occupation would take the form of “Zones” of occupation, each roughly equal in territory, population and economic potential. Because of the symbolic and psychological importance of Berlin as the capital of Germany, it was also decided that Berlin too had to be occupied “jointly.” This was interpreted to mean that each occupying power would occupy a “Sector” of Berlin.

Geography determined that the Soviet Union, whose Red Army was advancing from the East, would be given its Zone of Occupation in the Eastern part of Germany, while the Western Allies would occupy the western portions of Germany. Initial plans saw Berlin on the border between East and West. Later, however, the border of the Soviet Zone moved roughly 100 miles further west, leaving Berlin deep inside the Soviet Zone of Occupation. This meant that the Western Sectors of the city were no longer a contiguous and integral part of their own Zones of occupation, but became small islands of Western authority within the Soviet Zone.

At the time this system of occupation was agreed upon, none of Germany was occupied and everyone involved in the discussions was more concerned about winning the war than about the details of a still somewhat visionary “post-war world.”  The issue of access routes to the Western Sectors of Berlin through the Soviet Zone was not considered important enough it to be documented in any protocol. At all events, once the Allies armies found themselves in occupation of Germany and had taken up their position within the agreed upon Zones, the Soviets de facto controlled the access routes. At no time did the Western Allies enjoy free movement of goods and persons across the Soviet Zone.

In fact, it was only with much irritation and many difficulties that the Western Allies were even allowed to take control of their Sectors in Berlin as agreed upon. After the Red Army had won the race to seize Berlin, it remained in sole occupation of the entire city for roughly two months while the Western Allies had to “negotiate” the terms and dates on which they would take control of their Sectors. These negotiations proved difficult and tedious and there were those in the West who felt that the West should not withdraw their troops back to the agreed-upon Zonal borders until Western troops were allowed into Berlin. These voices were overruled by those, notably General Eisenhower himself, who were anxious to co-operate with the Soviet Union in the long run. They felt it was a matter of good-will to withdraw within the agreed Zones of Occupation and trust the Soviets to let Western troops into Berlin in due course.

Yet two things need to be noted about this stage. First, that Western demands for “free and uninhibited” access to Berlin were “noted” but not accepted by the Soviets, and second that the manner in which the Western Allies were allowed to establish their garrisons in Berlin presaged things to come.  When the first American and British troops set off on their separate ways to garrison their respective Sectors in Berlin, they encountered immediate and arbitrary interference at the Zonal border. Furthermore, the Soviets not only prevented the Western Allies from making a triumphal entry into Berlin, they demonstrated their ability to completely close down access to Berlin any time they wished to do so.

Colonel Howley, the newly appointed deputy commandant of the American Sector in Berlin, had his advance party arbitrarily reduced in size from 500 officers and men in 120 vehicles to just 37 officers, 175 men and 50 vehicles before being allowed to enter the Soviet Zone. Then, just outside Berlin, this much reduced force was again stopped by Soviet troops and prevented from entering the city itself. Instead, his column was diverted to Babelsberg just outside of Berlin and prevented from proceeding for roughly one week. At last, with an exaggerated display of Soviet hospitality, the Americans were finally allowed to enter Berlin. They were received at their future barracks by Soviet troops who withdrew with waving flags and fixed bayonets in splendid parade march. They then discovered that their quarters had been stripped not only of furniture but of every oven, stove, light fixture, electrical outlet, window pane, sink and toilet. The once well-appointed accommodations of the German Wehrmacht had been rendered entirely uninhabitable by the Soviet units that had housed there for two brief months before being turned over to their American “Allies.” The American troops had to spend their first days in Berlin camping out in the forest of Grünewald.

The Soviets employed similar tactics against the British. First the advance unit of the Royal Army was told that “all” the bridges across the Elbe in Magdeburg were “closed for repair” and that they would have to wait indefinitely for repairs to be effected. Unfortunately for the Soviets, the British officers commanding this unit were experienced veterans and they very rapidly found a bridge which the Soviets had forgotten to guard. They redeployed and crossed the Elbe after only a few hours’ delay. Upon reaching Berlin they again encountered bridge problems. In this case, a bridge over the Havel – clearly marked on their maps as intact – had been destroyed by the Soviets “by accident.” Again the leading elements fanned out to look for alternatives – which again they did. To the sound of fife and drum the British advance unit entered Berlin in parade fashion - but they too had to camp in the open on the former Olympic playing fields.  Meanwhile, the advance party of the Royal Air Force that had arrived to assume command of Gatow airfield in the British Sector of Berlin was herded into a hangar and detained for 24 hours without any explanation much less apology from their Soviet allies/jailers.

The “alliance of convenience” was already over — or at least starting to unravel.

*****

NOTE: The content of this blog post is based on Helena P. Schrader. The Blockade Breakers. Pen & Sword, 2008 

 The Berlin Airlift is the subject of Bridge to Tomorrow, a trilogy of novels starting with Cold Peace.

    Berlin 1948. 

    In the ruins of Hitler’s capital, former RAF officers, a woman     pilot, and the victim of Russian brutality form an air                  ambulance company. But the West is on a collision course        with Stalin’s aggression and Berlin is about to become a            flashpoint. World War Three is only a misstep away.

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My novels about the RAF in WWII are intended as tributes to the men in the air and on the ground that made a victory against fascism in Europe possible. 

Riding the icy, moonlit sky,

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Their chances of survival were less than fifty percent. 

Their average age was 21.

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MORAL FIBRE is the WINNER OF A HEMINGWAY AWARD 2022 and was a FINALIST for the BOOK EXCELLENCE AWARD IN HISTORICAL FICTION.

 

Disfiguring injuries, class prejudice and PTSD are the focus of three heart-wrenching tales set in WWII by award-winning novelist Helena P. Schrader. Find out more at: https://crossseaspress.com/grounded-eagles

 

 

"Where Eagles Never Flew" was the the winner of a Hemingway Award for 20th Century Wartime Fiction and a Maincrest Media Award for Military Fiction. Find out more at: https://crossseaspress.com/where-eagles-never-flew

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