Maryland Voluntary State Curriculum (vsc)
Part One: The Berlin Airlift
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- Student Resource Sheet 6
Part One: The Berlin AirliftO  n May 8, 1945 Germany unconditionally surrendered, ending World War II in the European theater. According to the terms agreed on at the Potsdam Conference in August 1945, the Allies divided Germany into four military occupation zones – French, British, United States, and Soviet. Like the rest of the country, the capital city of Berlin, located right in the middle of the Soviet-controlled Eastern half, was also divided into four parts, one half being Soviet controlled, and the rest divided amongst the Western powers A four-power provisional government, called the Allied Control Council, was installed in Berlin. This union of governments was to control and rebuild the city of Berlin. For economic purposes, the British and Americans merged their zones into a single unified zone called Bizonia. They handed over much of the administrative responsibility for Bizonia to the Germans who were responsible for the task of economic reconstruction. Plans were made at the same time for the economic merger of the French zone with Bizonia to produce a federated West Germany. The Soviets were bitterly opposed to these developments because they believed the plans would lead to an independent German state.
A prerequisite for an independent Germany was the revival of its economy. At that time, the only active economy in West Germany was the black market. It had to be destroyed. That could only be done with currency reform. The nearly worthless Reichsmark was to be replaced by a brand new currency, the Deutsche Mark, which would have a stable and universally accepted value. On June 18, 1948, the Deutsche Mark became the official currency of West Germany. West Germany's economic miracle began on that day. The black market was wiped out almost overnight. The cigarette, which for three years had been Germany's only valued unit of exchange, became once again merely something to smoke. Traders abandoned the barter system and returned to selling goods for cash. For the ordinary German the greatest wonder of currency reform was the magical, virtually immediate stocking of shop windows with a variety of foodstuffs and consumer goods which had not been seen legally for years. Soviet reaction was immediate. All passenger traffic between the Western zones and Berlin by road and rail was cut off almost instantly. Russian and East German patrols along the frontier were greatly increased in strength. The Berlin Blockade had begun. Student Resource Sheet #4 Part Two: The Berlin Airlift  The Allies decided that the only way to circumvent this situation was to fly over the Russian blockade and supply Berlin by air. The strongest objection to this strategy was the fear that it would be impossible to fly the amount of supplies needed to fortify the city. The city's daily food ration was determined to be 646 tons of flour and wheat; 125 tons of cereal; 64 tons of fat; 109 tons of meat and fish; 180 tons of dehydrated potatoes; 180 tons of sugar; 11 tons of coffee; 19 tons of powdered milk; 5 tons of whole milk for children; 3 tons of fresh yeast for baking; 144 tons of dehydrated vegetables; 38 tons of salt; and 10 tons of cheese. In total, 1,534 tons were needed daily to keep the over 2 million people alive. That's not including other necessities, like coal and fuel. Coal was needed to heat homes as well as power industry. In order to supply the people of Berlin, planes would have to make 1000 flights each day. On June 26, 1948 the airlift to began.
There were many technicalities associated with the actual airlift. Air Traffic Controllers were expected to bring the airplanes in and out of the various airfields at three-minute intervals. This was a rate that was considered impossible. Many of the procedures developed by those men helped to form the foundation for the modern air traffic control system. Pilots flying in the corridors encountered numerous problems; one was the erratic German weather. Weather changed so often that it was not uncommon to leave a base in West Germany under ideal conditions, only to find impossible conditions in Berlin. What made it even more treacherous was the approach to Tempelhof. In order to land there, a pilot had to literally fly between the high rise apartment buildings at the end of the runway so he could land. A second runway required a steep drop over a building in order to land soon enough so there was enough runway for braking. All these conditions plus 10 tons of cargo were more than enough for any pilot to handle, especially during the German winter. As one pilot said, "As we came in looking for this place all we could see were bombed-out buildings all around. Then we spied this grass field-it seemed more like a pasture than an airfield-and came over the homing beacon. We came right on over the top of an apartment building and over a little opening in the barbed wire fence and there we were. It kind of reminded me of the feeling that a crop duster would have in western America, landing on a highroad or in the pasture he's dusting." Unfortunately, that wasn't all the pilots had to deal with. The Soviets constantly harassed the pilots during the airlift. Incidents of Soviet pilots buzzing, close flying, and shooting near, not at airlift planes were common. Balloons were released in the corridors, flak was not unheard of, radio interference and searchlights in the pilots' eyes were all forms of Soviet harassment in the corridors. However, this did not stop the pilots, the planes kept flying. In spite of all this harassment, no aircraft was shot down during the operation. That would have started a war, and the Soviets did not want that. Student Resource Sheet #5 Part Three: The Berlin Airlift I  n the early weeks of the airlift there were only 160 aircraft, most of them small planes with only 1.5- 3.5-ton capacity. Gradually bigger aircraft began to arrive from American bases all over the world and the daily tonnages started climbing. In July it averaged 2,226 tons or just under half the necessary minimum; in August it rose to 3,839 tons; by October, at 4,760, it exceeded the minimum requirement for the first time.
During the winter months the main worry was not food, but fuel. West Berlin needed three times as much coal as it did foodstuffs to keep the populace from freezing to death and to keep industry alive. By the spring of 1949 the airlift was in full stride and running efficiently. There were now over 400 American and British aircraft shuttling back and forth between the three airfields in Berlin and the airfields in the American and British zones, one plane every three minutes, twenty-four hours a day. At the peak of the airlift a plane was landing or taking off from Berlin's airfields every thirty seconds round the clock and daily tonnages were averaging 8,000 tons. "The sound of the engines," wrote one Berliner, "is music to our ears." Over the course of thirteen months the planes from the west brought in over 500,000 tons of food and over 1,500,000 tons of coal. The planes also brought in special cargos-feed for the animals in the Berlin Zoo, special diet packs for nursing mothers, the sick and elderly, chocolate for Christmas, newsprint for west Berlin's free press, two million seedlings to replace the trees that had been cut down, and Volkswagens for the Berlin police. The planes did not always leave Berlin empty. Nearly 175,000 people were airlifted tout of the city, most of them children and Tuberculosis patients, along with thousands of tons of manufactured goods stamped "Made in Blockaded Berlin." Student Resource Sheet #6Directory: NTI%20Documents -> High%20School%20Social%20Studies -> 4%20-%20Wednesday%20AM%20-%20Know%20Your%20Content -> Blackboard Blackboard -> Unit 4: 1877 to World War I grade: 9-12 Subject: African American Studies The Black Experience 1877-World War I Download 351.81 Kb. Share with your friends:
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