1948: the Berlin airlift: in one of the first confrontations of the cold war the U.S. began a yearlong airlift of food and aid to West Berlin after the Soviet Union blockaded the city.

• Author: Roberts, Sam
• Position: TIMES PAST

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"An iron curtain has descended across the continent," Winston Churchill declared in 1946. Behind that curtain, the former British Prime Minister said, East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Yugoslavia, and the other nations of Central and Eastern Europe had come under the control of the Soviet Union and its ruthless dictator, Joseph Stalin.

At the time, "iron curtain" was just a metaphor, but two years later, in June 1948, it became a reality when the Soviets literally tried to cut off West Berlin--located deep within Communist East Germany--with a blockade designed to starve the city into submission.

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The blockade was an early and dangerous provocation of the Cold War, which pitted the United States and its allies against the Soviet Union for 40 years after the end of World War II.

During the war, the U.S. and the Soviets were on the same side, with Great Britain and France, in the fight against Hitler's Germany. But even before Germany's surrender in April 1945, the conflict between what would become the two postwar superpowers was taking shape: Washington wanted to limit the Soviet Union's territorial gains in Europe, and the Soviets wanted to extend Communist rule and build a buffer against future attacks from Germany and the West.

At the Potsdam Conference outside Berlin in July 1945, the Allies divided Germany into four occupation zones: The American, British, and French zones would ultimately constitute West Germany, a democratic republic; the Soviets established a socialist state in their zone, which became East Germany.

Berlin, which had been Germany's capital, was deep inside East Germany, more than 100 miles from the West German border. And like Germany itself, the city was divided into a free western half controlled by the U.S., Britain, and France, and a Soviet-controlled eastern half.

Germany was in ruins, and initially, all the wartime allies wanted to punish Germany for the war and for Nazi atrocities. They also wanted to make sure that Germany would never wage war in Europe again. The Soviet Union, which suffered enormous destruction and millions of deaths at the hands of the invading Nazis, was particularly concerned with Germany's "pacification."

But to enlist the West Germans as allies against the spread of Communism in Europe, the U.S. ultimately decided that it had to help rebuild Germany (along with the rest of Western Europe in a multi-billion-dollar effort known as the Marshall Plan).

Compassion for the German people was one reason, but American self-interest was another: President Harry S. Truman realized that starving West Germans might be more concerned with food, shelter, and jobs than with political freedom.

"There is no choice between being a Communist on 1,500 calories a day, and a believer in democracy on a thousand," said General Lucius Clay, who was in charge of the American occupation zone.

WEST BERLIN'S LIFELINE

So the U.S. and its Allies helped rebuild a "stable and productive" Germany. Food and fuel, rather than bombs, became a Cold War weapon.

West Berlin, marooned in the middle of East Germany, needed special attention, and a steady stream of convoys from West Germany supplied it with food, fuel, and other staples. It was a thorn in the side for the Soviets, who saw West Berlin as an outpost for American spies and propaganda, and...