Backstory to the Berlin Airlift: Collision Course
Even before the introduction of the new currency, however, the political tensions between East and West had been mounting. In retrospect, the failure of the fifth meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers held in London in Nov.-Dec. 1947 appears to have been a signal to the Soviets that the time for more forceful tactics had come. At the political level, the most obvious manifestation of these new tactics was the fact that the Soviet representatives walked out of the Allied Control Commission and the Allied Kommandatura on March 20 and June 16, 1948 respectively. In both cases, the pretext for the walk out was petty. Furthermore, in both cases the Soviets read prepared speeches condemning the Western Allies for their stubbornness, arrogance and failure to respect the spirit of Potsdam. The insults were, however, by then so routine that they wearied more than provoked the Western representatives. Furthermore, if the Soviets had expected the West to respond with distres...