How did the Berlin Blockade increase tensions between the US and the USSR?

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The Anglo-American Bizonal Fusion Agreement of December 1946 embodied Russian concern about the consolidation of allied zones. The Soviet government, led by Stalin, feared a unitary Germany run by non-communist political parties. A conference of foreign ministers held at the end of 1947 failed to agree on future policy towards Germany. 

Following the introduction a new currency in the western zones, from July 1948 Stalin deployed an embargo on rail and road traffic to Berlin from the west. The aim was to force an allied withdrawal from Berlin, and discredit western policy towards Germany. Truman was determined that the allies should stay in Berlin and used an airlift to provide the city with food and fuel. Stalin called off the blockade in May 1949 having failed in his objectives. Another conference of foreign ministers failed to produce an agreement.

North Atlantic Treaty

The blockade heightened the tensions of the Cold War. It greatly increased concerns about the vulnerability of Western Europe to an attack by Stalin's forces. In the Brussels Treaty of March 1948, Britain, France, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg agreed mutual assistance in the event of an attack.

On its own the pact was too weak to deter the Soviet Union from aggression but the Berlin blockade had, by now, convinced the US that Russia was a serious threat. The Vandenberg Resolution of June 1948 enabled the US to enter into military treaties with foreign states, and in April 1949, the United States, Canada, the Brussels powers, and most of the other Western European nations signed the North Atlantic Treaty, agreeing to mutual defence in the event of an attack by the Soviet Union. The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) was formed.

At the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950, the US and Russia headed two opposing power blocs. This high state of tension and conflict became known as the Cold War, and was a major feature of global international relations in following years.

At the end of the Second World War, Germany was divided between the four Allied powers: France, the United Kingdom, the United States and the Soviet Union. Its capital, Berlin, suffered the same fate with the added complication that West Berlin became an enclave within the Soviet zone.

Two years later, tensions mounted between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union, primarily over the reconstruction and monetary reform of Germany. At this point, the Soviet Union began impeding communications between the Western Allies, West Germany and West Berlin.

Joseph Stalin, the Soviet leader, imposed the Berlin Blockade from 24 June 1948 to 12 May 1949, cutting off all land and river transit between West Berlin and West Germany.

The Western Allies responded with a massive airlift to come to West Berlin’s aid.

One of the first major international crises of the Cold War period, the Berlin Blockade exposed the deep ideological differences separating East and West.

The blockade of Berlin was the first serious crisis of the Cold War. By 1948, the Western allies began moving towards consolidating their occupation zones in Western Germany into a single independent German state. As part of that process, the U.S., France and Britain took steps to reform the currency in the parts of Germany they occupied, in order to promote economic recovery. The new currency, over which the Soviets would have no control, was also to become legal tender in the Western sectors of Berlin. 

The USSR, which had been invaded twice by Germany, was alarmed at the prospect of a strong Germany. The Soviet leadership responded to the Western allies' currency reforms by installing their own new currency in East Berlin just 24 hours before the West mark was to go into circulation. They also imposed a blockade on West Berlin, cutting off all land and rail routes into the Western sectors. Lucius Clay, the military governor of the American zone of occupied Germany wrote: "When the order of the Soviet Military Administration to close all rail traffic from the western zones went into effect at 6:00AM on the morning of June 24, 1948, the three western sectors of Berlin, with a civilian population of about 2,500,000 people, became dependent on reserve stocks and airlift replacements. It was one of the most ruthless efforts in modern times to use mass starvation for political coercion... " 

Initially the Soviet authorities thought the plan was working. "Our control and restrictive measures have dealt a strong blow at the prestige of the Americans and British in Germany. " The Soviet authorities reported. But the Western Allies responded immediately by mounting a tremendous airlift. Under the leadership of General Curtis LeMay, ten-ton capacity C-54s began supplying the city on July 1. By the fall the airlift, code-named "Operation Vittles "and often referred to as "LeMay's feed and coal company ," was bringing in an average of 5,000 tons of supplies a day. 

Not only did the blockade turn out to be totally ineffective, it ended up backfiring on the Soviets in other ways. It provoked genuine fears of war in the West. And instead of preventing the establishment of an independent West Germany, it accelerated the Allies plans to set up the state. It also hastened the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, an American-Western European military alliance. In May 1949, Stalin had little choice but to lift the blockade. 

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