Political Prisoners: The Berliners Role in the Berlin Blockade

 The Berlin Crisis of 1948-1949 has rightly been described as the "first battle of the Cold War." The main protagonists were the two post-war superpowers: the United States and the Soviet Union. In some respects, Berlin was only the venue. Yet it would be wrong to think the Berliners had no role to play. On the contrary, the reaction and attitude of the Berliners themselves were critical to the outcome of the clash.

The Soviet Blockade of Berlin had from its inception political objectives. As a maximum: a unified, centralized and Communist Germany, firmly rooted in the Soviet sphere of influence. As a minimum, the prevention of the establishment of an independent, German state anchored in the “capitalist” camp. In other words, the Soviets sought either a Communist or a neutral Germany. To achieve this end, the Soviets attempted to expel the Western Allies from the German capital, discrediting them at the same time, and to force the Allies to negotiate a German “solution” that was acceptable to Stalin.

Soviet policy, based on the assumption that no Airlift could sustain a population of over two million people, anticipated that either the Allies would concede their defeat and retreat voluntarily from Berlin or that the outraged people of Berlin would force the Western Allies to withdraw. Various sources estimated that it was only a matter of weeks until unemployment and hunger resulted in widespread riots and a popular uprising against the Western Powers. It was expected that West Berliners would demand – more or less violently - that the Western Allies “go home.”

But one month into the Blockade the anticipated riots had not materialized. Instead there was the steady drone of aircraft over the city and morale in the West had sky-rocketed. Moreover, respect for the Western Allies had shot up dramatically. Precisely because the Berliners had expected so little from the West, the mere fact that the West was willing to try to sustain the entire city buoyed up hopes and spirits. After all, few Berliners had any idea of just how little the Dakotas of the early airlift could actually carry!

Besides it was summer. It was warm and sunny. People didn’t need to heat their houses and the power-plants of the city did not have to sustain winter demands for electricity with airlifted coal. Berlin was blockaded, but it was not yet a walled city surrounded by barbed wire, watch-towers, mine-fields and soldiers with orders to shoot to kill. That would come later. In the summer of 1948, Berlin was an open city only politically cut off from the surrounding countryside and not yet cut in two by a lethal wall.

This meant that the initial impact of the Blockade was far less than anyone – East or West – had anticipated. To be sure, people resident in West Berlin could not “legally” purchase goods in East Berlin nor – more important – the surrounding rural areas of Brandenburg. Commercial traffic in goods from the surrounding areas had been shut down. But in reality there were very many ways for enterprising citizens to obtain goods from the East. Over two hundred thousand workers still lived in one half of the city and worked in the other, for example. Families sometimes had one member working for the British or Americans while another worked for the Soviets. Almost everyone had family or friends in the other Sectors of the city. It was only human nature that friends and family shared. In short, by late July it was clear even to the Soviets that spontaneous riots against the West were not going to materialize. New methods were needed to convince the West Berliners that their future lay with the East – and the Allies that it was time to pull out.

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.

Watch a video teaser here: Winning a War with Milk, Coal and Chocolate

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