Explaining History Podcast

Berlin Blockade (1948–49)

Explaining History Podcast

Berlin Blockade (1948–49)

Reading time:

1–2 minutes

Full Description

The Soviet decision, from June 1948 to May 1949, to block Western Allied access to West Berlin by land and water, in response to the Western powers’ unilateral introduction of a new currency in their occupation zones. The Western Allies responded with a massive airlift, flying over 200,000 sorties and delivering 2.3 million tonnes of supplies to sustain a city of two million people. The Soviet Union lifted the blockade in May 1949 after the airlift demonstrated that the West would not be coerced.

Critical Perspective

The Berlin Blockade was a Soviet miscalculation that accelerated the very outcomes it was designed to prevent: the formation of West Germany as a state and the creation of NATO. Stalin had overestimated Western vulnerability and underestimated Western resolve. The Airlift became a powerful propaganda victory for the United States, casting the West as Berlin’s protector and the Soviet Union as its aggressor.

Explaining History

Explaining History Podcast

For more than a decade, the Explaining History Podcast has helped listeners around the world make sense of modern history. What began in 2012 as a simple experiment—short, accessible episodes explaining major historical events—has grown into a long-running library of carefully researched, thoughtful explorations of the 20th and 21st centuries.

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