Backstory to the Berlin Airlift: Flawed Blueprint for a Post-War World
The Western Allies blundered into the absurd situation that culminated in the Blockade of Berlin 1948 by a series of strategic miscalculations. To understand how the West was backed into an outrageously expensive Airlift it is first necessary to return to 1945 and the Potsdam Conference that was supposed to establish the blueprint for the Post-War World.
Both Great Britain and the United States came to the first post-war summit conference, held at Potsdam between 17 July and 2 August 1946, with a very strong commitment to continuing the “good working relationship” they had developed with the Soviet Union during the War. By contrast, the Soviet leadership came to the Conference fully conscious that the Soviet Union was more powerful than it had been at any point in its history and that its armies were in occupation of vast areas of rich industrial and agricultural territories that were now theirs to exploit. From the Soviet point of view, the need to compromise with the ideological enemy was over. It was time to end the distasteful, tactical alliance with the class enemy and resume the strategic struggle against the Capitalist Powers.
This clear difference in attitude made it easy for the Soviet dictator, Joseph Stalin, to out-manoeuvre his counterparts. Stalin was also advantaged by the fact that both the United States and Great Britain were represented by new heads of state. Harry Truman had assumed the Presidency unexpectedly at the death of President Roosevelt in April 1945, and as a result of a surprise victory in the General Election Clement Attlee replaced Sir Winston Churchill in the very midst of the Potsdam Conference in July 1945. This left Stalin as the only veteran of what would later be called “summit diplomacy” sitting at the conference table in Potsdam.
Stalin won the first round before the conference was even convened. He did so by simply presenting the Western leaders with important “fait accompli” on vital topics that were supposed to be the discussed and agreed at the Conference. Stalin had redrawn the map of Europe by turning over vast portions of the Germany to the Poles and annexing other parts directly into the Soviet Union along with large areas of what had been Poland. As one historian put it: “All in all, Stalin had redistributed a quarter of Germany without a word or by-your-leave” to the West.[i] In addition, the Soviet Union had installed a puppet government in Warsaw which ignored the Polish Government in Exile, which was still recognised in the West as the legitimate government of Poland. The only concession that the West gained was the belated acceptance of France as a “victorious power” – but only on the condition that France’s zone of occupation be carved out of the British and American zones; the Soviets gave up not one inch of territory to accommodate an “Ally” that from the Soviet point of view had never participated in the War.
At the Conference itself, Stalin masterfully agreed to all the high-sounding principles that his Western Allies favoured from “democracy” to “freedom of the speech, press and religion,” but he carefully inserted the caveat that these rights would be exercised “subject to security requirements” thereby creating an excuse for inhibiting them all. Both the Soviet Union and the West agreed on the need to “de-nazify, de-militarise and de-industrialise Germany,” but the tactics for pursuing these aims were left intentionally vague. And while all three Powers agreed on the need to prohibit Germany from the production of war materials, the limitation of the production of industrial products which could contribute to war production, and the reconstruction of “peaceful” and agricultural production, they were not in agreement on the size, nature or source of reparations.
In fact, on the issue of reparations Stalin singularly failed to get his way. By now the Western Allies had seen at first hand just how profound the destruction of German industrial capacity had been and they had had their first taste of reparations “Russian style.” It was rapidly becoming clear to experts and observers that the Soviets had been plundering without accounting ever since they crossed the German border - and that they plundered most thoroughly in those areas which they latter turned over to the West.
A more important factor dictating Western firmness on the issue was, however, a fundamental difference in the very concept of reparations. The Western Powers, being good capitalists, wanted Germany to pay reparations out of production and/or earned income. The Soviet wanted to expropriate the means of production. The West correctly foresaw that reparations in the Soviet manner would render Germany incapable of economic recovery much less sustained growth. It was this, not any miserliness with respect to what total sum might ultimately be, which made any agreement on reparations impossible.
In short, Potsdam failed to produce any clear guidelines for the reconstruction of Germany much less any concrete agreements on key aspects of its recovery. There was no agreement on the reconstruction of transportation and communication networks, the re-establishment of a sound currency and banking system, the establishment of common policies on prices, wages, exports etc. Instead of establishing the framework for pursuing post-war recovery, the ad-hoc wartime structure of joint decision-making was retained. Effectively, anything affecting “Germany as a whole” had to be agreed to unanimously by the wartime allies, while within their respective zones, the individual Military Governors were granted uninhibited and absolute power.
The situation in Berlin was a microcosm of the situation in Germany as a whole. All decisions affecting Berlin “as a whole” had to be made unanimously in the Kommandatura, yet the individual Sector Commandants retained the right to rule their Sectors like absolute despots. The first meeting of the Kommandatura was a miniature version of the Potsdam Conference. Here too the Soviets presented the West with a series of important “fait accompli.” Namely, the Soviets blandly announced that “naturally” all the Orders they had issued while in sole occupation of the city had to be left intact and unquestioned “until the Kommandatura saw fit to change them.” While this sounded reasonable enough, in fact, the Soviet veto in the Kommandatura meant that every single act of the Soviet Occupation Powers from the day they took control of the city in May 1945 until the Western Powers arrived in July was now immutable. As one observer put it:
The Western Allies woke up to find that they had accepted a civil city administration in which the majority of the key posts were held by Communists; a banking system that was Communist controlled; a police force commanded by a Communist convert and staffed by Communists; a trade union system in which three quarters of the executive belonged to the Communist Party; a press set-up in which news and newsprint were freely available only to the Communist newspapers; a radio that broadcast nothing but Russian propaganda, and rationing so arranged that the easiest way to subsist was to be a Communist.[ii]
Far less obvious to the new-comers was the very subtle work which the Soviet cadres had been conducting for months to control of the German political scene. Unlike the Western Allies, particularly the Americans, who arrived in Germany with the perception that all Germans were Nazis or their willing followers and that the country was collectively guilty for all the crimes committed in its name, the Soviets arrived in Germany with an ideological framework for differentiating between “good” Germans (i.e. Communists) and “bad” Germans (everyone else, who could be labelled either “Fascist” or “Capitalist” as convenient).
Even before the end of hostilities, German Communists trained in Moscow during the war years were working systematically to take control of all self-help groups that sprang up in Germany when the existing infrastructure disintegrated. In this manner, they took over almost anything that vaguely hinted at self-government. They were aided in their work by a genuine, domestic sentiment in favour of Communism.
The latter sprang from the fact that the German Communist Party (KPD) had a very long and heroic history. In the last free election in Germany before the Nazi seizure of power, the KPD won fully 17% of the vote and was the third largest party in parliament after the Nazis and the Social Democrats (SPD). The first victims of National Socialist oppression had been Communists (and Socialists) – even before the Jews. The two institutions with the highest percentage of members executed by the Nazis for opposition to the Nazi regime were the German General Staff and the German Communist Party. For many former rank-and-file members of the German Communist Party, the arrival of the Red Army on German soil really was viewed as liberation.
But surviving German Communists who thought their time had come were frightfully disappointed. The Soviets ensured that within the KPD all power went to those German Communists who had been living in the Soviet Union and trained in Moscow. These cadre leaders made it equally clear that they would tolerate neither criticism nor discussion within the Party. There was only one right answer to any question and that was the answer provided by the Party leadership in Moscow.
While this policy worked openly in most areas occupied by the Red Army, the returning Communist leadership had clearly been briefed on the fact that the Western Allies would be in occupation of roughly two thirds of Berlin. As a result, it was decided that subtler methods were called for and the leader of the KPD, Walther Ulbricht, openly told his close followers that the objective in Berlin was to “appear” democratic while retaining control of all key organisations. The favourite means of doing so was to appoint a “technocrat” – preferably an academic or intellectual with no party affiliation – to the figurehead top position in any organisation or governing body and ensure that a Communist was the “deputy” with the real power. Ulbricht specifically ordered that the mayors of the respective boroughs of the city should be known Communists only in the traditional strongholds of the KPD such as Wedding and Friedrichshain. In upper class suburbs such as Zehlendorf, conservative politicians should be appointed mayor while in much of the city Social Democrats should be “allowed” to hold office.
Meanwhile, however, the SMAD worked diligently to ensure that the Communist Party would win the next municipal elections. This was a two-pronged attack. On the one hand the KPD was given almost limitless resources with respect to such things as paper allocations for leaflets and posters, petrol rations for functionaries and agitators to travel around the devastated country, special rations and better housing for loyal Party members and – perhaps most enticing of all – jobs for their followers. On the other hand, and simultaneous with this overt political campaign, was the establishment of a covert police network. Wherever the Red Army went, it brought the Soviet Secret Police, then known as the NKVD, with it. As with the Gestapo, the NKVD, infiltrated into civil society with the purpose of observing, identifying and eliminating elements that looked independent, intelligent and spirited enough to cause “trouble.” Trouble-makers could be sent either to concentration camps taken over from the Nazis, such as Bautzen in Saxony, or sent to the Gulags in the Soviet Union.
Thus, within a short time of moving into Berlin, the Soviets had re-established an efficient Communist Party machine run by Soviet trained Germans and supported by the Soviet Secret Police. They expected that between the carrot (better rations, housing, jobs) and the stick (fear of disappearing into a concentration camp or gulag), they would be able to “win over” the German population to Communism.
Against this highly planned, well-funded and efficiently executed political program, the West had literally nothing to offer. The policy of “collective guilt” meant that the Americans particularly were suspicious of all Germans. Furthermore, British and American democratic traditions were based on a plurality of competing parties, which made them scrupulously careful not to favour one political party over another. The fact that there was now a Labour government in the UK which inevitably sympathized with the SPD while the American authorities were equally suspicious of the SPD and KPD further complicated matters.
Given the greater resources and unabashed support of the Soviets for the KPD, it is astonishing that the German people did not simply embrace Communism. But they did not. That they did not was largely due to the fact that the political class in Germany had strong memories of the KPD’s pre-war policies and, after their experiences with the Nazis, a healthy hatred of totalitarian parties of any colour. While the Right hated the Communists as much as ever, the SPD remembered vividly the tactical swings of the KPD which had periodically treated the “social fascist” SPD as a greater enemy than the Nazis. For the “man on the street” (and even more so the woman on the street) the KPD was simply too obviously “the Russian Party” – and the woman on the street already had good reason to hate the Russians.
Nor were the Germans the only people in Europe who failed to recognize the superiority of the Soviet system and embrace it with joy. In November 1945, the Hungarians elected a new parliament in which only 18% of the votes went to the Communists. A week later the Austrians went to the poles and the Communists reaped less than 5% of the vote.[iii] At the same time the NKVD in Germany must have been reporting the fact that despite all the advantages showered upon the KPD and its members, the SPD was gaining strength at the expense of the KPD. Stalin quickly concluded that the German working class movement could no longer “afford” to be splintered into two parties. It was time to merge the KPD and SPD into a single “Socialist Unity Party” which could represent all “progressive” elements in their struggle against the “reactionary” forces of Capitalism and Fascism.
A bitter battle for the votes of the registered members of the SPD ensued. A KPD attempt to take over the leadership of the two parties via a coup in the respective executive committees was foiled by the secondary SPD-leadership, which rebelled against their own executive. They demanded a referendum among party members and this was set for March 1946. At issue was whether the two parties should merge or not, and the referendum was hotly contested and anxiously monitored by the Occupation Powers. By the day of the referendum rolled around, however, it was so obvious that the vast majority of SPD members would vote against a merger of the two parties that the Russians felt compelled to intervene on the side of “progress.” “Due to procedural errors” no voting was allowed to take place in a number of key boroughs in the Soviet Sector. In those boroughs where voting was initially allowed to proceed, Red Army troops arrived shortly after opening of the polls and results already registered were confiscated while those people in line to vote outside were dispersed by force.
Unable to prevent or stop voting in the Western Sectors, however, the Soviets were forced to rely on terror tactics to attempt to discourage participation in the referendum. They spread rumours that the Soviets would punish anyone who did not vote the “right” way and threatened leading SPD figures personally and directly. Altogether these tactics worked well enough to convince almost a third of the registered SPD members that it was too dangerous to vote. Of the 23,000 SPD members who did vote in the referendum, 20,000 voted against a merger with the KPD. The Soviets ignored the results and went ahead with the "merger," by renaming the old KPD the "Socialist Unity Party" (Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands – SED). But in the Western Zones the SPD continued to operate as an independent -- and increasingly strong and self-confident party.
This referendum had an impact far beyond the two Leftist parties who contended it. The Soviet tactics of denying voting opportunities, confiscating results and harassing voters of the Socialist Left was a clear alarm signal to everyone that the Soviet Union would under no circumstances tolerate other classes or parties to operate inside territories under their control. If the German working class in “Red” Berlin was to be denied their right to have a say in the future of their political parties, than it was obvious to thinking voters with liberal or conservative leanings that they would be disenfranchised in any political system controlled by the Soviets. Any illusions about the tolerance of the Soviet Occupation Power for political diversity died as a result of this referendum.
Meanwhile, the Western Powers were experiencing a less spectacular but no less profound disillusionment with Soviet policies of their own. Unlike the SED founding, which represented an open confrontation and final break between the Soviets and the democratic Left, there was no one issue which crystallized the conflict between the Soviets and the Western Powers. Instead, there was a continuous struggle over virtually every aspect of governing Germany and Berlin. Although conflicts were often individually minor, they were cumulatively vital. What the Western Powers discovered in a year of painstaking efforts at co-operation both at the summit and the working levels was that it was impossible to agree with the Soviet Union about anything having to do with the reconstruction of Germany. Since everything had to be agreed unanimously, this meant that no progress towards the reconstruction of Germany was been made whatsoever.
To be fair, the Soviets were at first energetically supported in their obstructionist tactics by the French. The French came to the Allied Control Council and Kommandatura with huge chips on their shoulders about having been left out of wartime summits. They were insecure in their place among the “Victorious” Powers and no doubt acutely aware of the absolute contempt of the Germans, who remembered all too well that the French Army had been defeated soundly in just a few weeks in 1940. The French were determined to punish Germany for this humiliation and distract world attention from the fact that the bulk of the French had happily collaborated with the Germans for the better part of the war. They worked diligently to reduce Germany to a rump, agricultural state incapable of ever again being an industrial much less military power. They laid claim not only to Alsace-Lorraine but the Saar and the Rheinland as well. They pursued a reparations policy that was only marginally less rapacious than the Soviet one. Indeed, the French state set about dismantling any industrial capacity that was modern and sophisticated from watch-making to surgical equipment – not to mention factories for aircraft, automobiles and telecommunications.
Like the Soviets, it was not only the factories that were dismantled and taken away, but skilled workers as well. These were deported to France and put to work rebuilding the stolen factories. In parts of Germany entire forests were felled, destroying 500 years of careful forest management. Meanwhile in the Control Council the French vetoed American proposals for a central German transport agency. They refused to allow the German Labour Unions to organise on a national basis. They prevented the establishment of national political parties in Germany. They even stopped the free movement of goods and people between Zones. In this manner they hoped to prevent Germany from ever becoming a unified nation again. What they achieved was the complete break-down of Four Power government and an end to the Potsdam system.
This then was the working environment in which the Americans and British struggled to reconstruct Germany. Next week I will look at the slow process of abandoning post-war illusions and the struggle for viable policies in the "real world."
[i] Tusa, p. 35.
[ii] Robert Rodrigo, Berlin Airlift, p. 9
[iii] Peter Auer, Ihr Voelker der Welt, p. 82.
*****
NOTE: The content of this blog post is based on Helena P. Schrader. The Blockade Breakers. Pen & Sword, 2008
The Berlin Airlift is also 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.
View a video teaser at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTuE7m5InZM&t=5s
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.
they took the war to Hitler.
Their chances of survival were less than fifty percent.
Their average age was 21.
This is the story of just one bomber pilot, his crew and the woman he loved.
It is intended as a tribute to them all.
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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.
"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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