Soviets restrict traffic in Berlin, April 1, 1948
On this day in 1948, Soviet authorities in Berlin implemented an order restricting both military and civilian traffic between the American, British and French occupation zones in post-World War II Germany and Berlin. The then-former German capital, located deep in the Soviet occupation zone, had also been divided into quadrants, three of which formed a Western enclave.
Under the new order, no cargo could leave Berlin by rail without the Soviet commander’s permission, and each train and truck was to be searched by Soviet authorities. In response, on April 2, Gen. Lucius Clay, the U.S. commander in Germany, halted all military trains to Berlin, requiring that supplies to the military garrison there would henceforth be transported by air.Continue Reading
In late June, following the introduction of the deutsche mark, the Soviets severed land and water connections between the non-Soviet zones and Berlin, halting rail and barge traffic in and out of the city and blocking food supplies to the civilian population in the city’s Western-occupied zones. The Soviets sought to force the Western powers to acquiesce to seeing Berliners supplied with all of their food, fuel and other supplies from Soviet-controlled sources, thereby giving them complete economic control over the entire city.
The Western allies responded to the blockade with a massive airlift. Over the next year, air crews flew more than 200,000 flights, providing up to 4,700 tons of food and fuel daily to the besieged West Berliners.
By April 1949, the airlift was judged to be a success: It was delivering more cargo than had previously been transported into the city by rail. That May, the Soviets lifted the blockade, which soon led to the creation of two German states: the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) and the German Democratic Republic (East Germany). They were reunified in 1990.
SOURCE: “TO SAVE A CITY: THE BERLIN AIRLIFT 1948-1949,” BY ROGER MILLER (2000)