European Aviation History

Just before midnight on the evening of June 23, 1948, the electricity network in the Western Sectors of Berlin collapsed without warning. Shortly afterwards, In the early hours of June 24 th , the sole railroad artery into the city from the Western Zone, roughly 100 miles to the west, was closed to rail traffic. At the same time, the autobahns by which the Western Powers moved personnel, goods and equipment to their garrisons in Berlin were shut down and all barge traffic into the Western sectors of the city was brought to a complete halt. The Western Sectors of Berlin were under siege. As the city awoke to a new day, the Russian controlled radio dryly announced to Berliners that: “Due to technical difficulties,” the Transport Authority of the Soviet Military Administration in Germany (SMAD) had been forced to suspend both passenger and goods traffic on the railroad between Berlin and Helmstedt, the latter being the closest point in the British Zone of Occupation. But Berliners r...

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 ...