The Berlin Blockade

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• Immediate cause of the Berlin Blockade was the introduction of a new currency into the Western sectors of Berlin on 23rd June 1948

• The deutschmark had replaced the reichsmark in the other Western zones only five days earlier

• A humiliating move for the communists, East Germans rushed to cash in their reichsmarks in exchange for the new currency.

• Stalin responded by closing all roads, canals and railways into Berlin If Stalin couldn't control his allies, he would attempt to starve the West Berliners into submission

• Americans immediately sent 60 long-range B-29 bombers from the US to bases in Britain. Although they did not carry nuclear weapons, the implication was clear. If the Soviet Union attempted to take West Berlin, Truman was prepared to fight back with conventional force or nuclear weapons

• Stalin didn't want to provoke war and likely wanted the West to give up Berlin, however Berlin had too much symbolic value for the West to abandon it. To give up Berlin would mean accepting the principle of a Soviet sphere of influence in the east and Americans were not willing to move on this point. The loss of Berlin would be a triumph of communism over capitalism

• The US and Britain responded with a massive daily airlift of supplies into West Berlin from 24th June 1948-12th May 1949

• They airlifted more than 4500 tons of food, fuel and other basic necessities into Berlin each day

• Significant outcomes include: German question was finally solved with the creation of West Germany and East Germany, The Americans demonstrated their commitment to the people of West Berlin and its mayor, Ernst Reuter, Berlin became the symbol of the Cold War, The Soviets showed they would not be intimidated, and Stalin played a game of brinkmanship, and there was an implied threat of nuclear conflict, with Truman moving the B-29 bombers to British bases