Blockade Berlin And The Cold War

Bog om Berlin i efterkrigstidens Kolde krig og bla. om russernes blokade af byen i 1948. Andre emner er den daværende berlinmur, Marshall-planen og spændingerne øst-vest.

The Berlin blockade brought former allies to the brink of war. Britain, France, the United States and the Soviet Union defeated and began their occupation of Germany in 1945, and within a few years, the Soviets and their Western partners were jockeying for control of their former foe. Attempting to thwart the Allied powers' plans to create a unified West German government, the Soviets blocked rail and road access to the western sectors of Berlin in June 1948. With no other means of delivering food and supplies to the German people under their protection, the Allies organized the Berlin airlift. In Berlin on the Brink: The Blockade, the Airlift, and the Cold War, Daniel F. Harrington examines the "Berlin question" from its origin in wartime plans for the occupation of Germany through the Paris Council of Foreign Ministers meeting in 1949. Harrington draws on previously untapped archival sources to challenge standard accounts of the postwar division of Germany, the origins of the blockade, the original purpose of the airlift, and the leadership of President Harry S. Truman. While thoroughly examining four-power diplomacy, Harrington demonstrates how the ingenuity and hard work of the people at the bottom—pilots, mechanics, and Berliners—were more vital to the airlift's success than decisions from the top. Harrington also explores the effects of the crisis on the 1948 presidential election and on debates about the custody and use of atomic weapons. Berlin on the Brink is a fresh, comprehensive analysis that reshapes our understanding of a critical event of cold war history.

In June 1948, Soviet authorities in Germany announced a land blockade of the American, British, and French sectors of Berlin. Isolated more than one hundred miles within Soviet-occupied territory, western Berlin was in danger of running out of coal, food, and the courage to stand up to Joseph Stalin.As Berlin in the Balance recounts, this crisis was a turning-point for U.S. policy. Just three years earlier, the Soviet Union had been an ally and Berlin the target of American bombers. In 1946 Winston Churchill had ignited protests by calling for an Anglo-American alliance against the USSR. The Berlin blockade made Churchill's ”iron curtain” through Europe an inescapable reality.Led by Harry S. Truman, the Western Allies refused to back away from Berlin. Instead, they took to the air, packing passenger planes with coal, potatoes, flour, and other necessities. Not even the commanders of the year-old U.S. Air Force believed this fleet could supply western Berlin for long. Its main airport was squeezed among apartment buildings. Autumn would bring blinding fogs. And nobody had ever tried to supply a city of millions by air. Berlin in the Balance tells the full, gripping story of this critical conflict—how it developed and how it played out. Noted historian Thomas Parrish shows us the crisis through the eyes of Truman, Stalin, and other leaders. We hear Berliners cheer the arrival of each ”raisin bomber”; the planes' roar was assurance that the democratic powers had not abandoned them. Through sources made available only after the fall of the USSR, we learn how Soviet leaders planned their strategy to drive out the West, what they feared, and what they hoped to achieve. Berlin in the Balance spotlights a different kind of air force heroism—flying heavy transport planes in weather so bad ”the birds walked,” harassed by Soviet fighters but never firing a shot. Under the decisive leadership of General William H. Tunner, crews took off every three minutes around the clock. Soldiers rushed to maintain the airplanes and runways, master a new radar system, even build a new airport. The operation depended on support from Frankfurt to London to Montana, on the sacrifices of German civilians and the boldness of French saboteurs. Using archives and fresh interviews, Parrish details the full scope and success of ”Operation Vittles.”The Berlin airlift stopped Stalin's expansion in Europe. It helped Truman win his upset election in 1948. And it set the course of East-West conflict for the next forty years. More than sixty U.S. and allied fliers died in this great operation, keeping a besieged city fueled, fed, and free. Berlin in the Balance is a masterful chronicle of this crucial, stirring saga.

Acclaimed historian Barry Turner presents a new history of the Cold War's defining episode. Berlin, 1948 – a divided city in a divided country in a divided Europe. The ruined German capital lay 120 miles inside Soviet-controlled eastern Germany. Stalin wanted the Allies out; the Allies were determined to stay, but had only three narrow air corridors linking the city to the West. Stalin was confident he could crush Berlin's resolve by cutting off food and fuel. In the USA, despite some voices still urging 'America first', it was believed that a rebuilt Germany was the best insurance against the spread of communism across Europe. And so over eleven months from June 1948 to May 1949, British and American aircraft carried out the most ambitious airborne relief operation ever mounted, flying over 2 million tons of supplies on almost 300,000 flights to save a beleaguered Berlin. With new material from American, British and German archives and original interviews with veterans, Turner paints a fresh, vivid picture the airlift, whose repercussions – the role of the USA as global leader, German ascendancy, Russian threat – we are still living with today.

This study examines the 'Berlin question' from its origin in wartime plans for the occupation of Germany to the Paris Council of Foreign Ministers meeting in 1949. Tracing the blockade's origins, it explains why British and American planners during the Second World War neglected Western access to post-war Berlin and why Western officials did little to reduce Berlin's vulnerability as Cold War tensions increased.

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Winner of the 2018 American Academy of Diplomacy Douglas Dillon Award Shortlisted for the 2018 Duff Cooper Prize in Literary Nonfiction “[A] brilliant book…by far the best study yet” (Paul Kennedy, The Wall Street Journal) of the gripping history behind the Marshall Plan and its long-lasting influence on our world. In the wake of World War II, with Britain’s empire collapsing and Stalin’s on the rise, US officials under new Secretary of State George C. Marshall set out to reconstruct western Europe as a bulwark against communist authoritarianism. Their massive, costly, and ambitious undertaking would confront Europeans and Americans alike with a vision at odds with their history and self-conceptions. In the process, they would drive the creation of NATO, the European Union, and a Western identity that continue to shape world events. Benn Steil’s “thoroughly researched and well-written account” (USA TODAY) tells the story behind the birth of the Cold War, told with verve, insight, and resonance for today. Focusing on the critical years 1947 to 1949, Benn Steil’s gripping narrative takes us through the seminal episodes marking the collapse of postwar US-Soviet relations—the Prague coup, the Berlin blockade, and the division of Germany. In each case, Stalin’s determination to crush the Marshall Plan and undermine American power in Europe is vividly portrayed. Bringing to bear fascinating new material from American, Russian, German, and other European archives, Steil’s account will forever change how we see the Marshall Plan. “Trenchant and timely…an ambitious, deeply researched narrative that…provides a fresh perspective on the coming Cold War” (The New York Times Book Review), The Marshall Plan is a polished and masterly work of historical narrative. An instant classic of Cold War literature, it “is a gripping, complex, and critically important story that is told with clarity and precision” (The Christian Science Monitor).