2019 markes the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and German reunification

The divided Germany after WW2

With the end of WW2, Germany was divided up into zones of occupation by the Allied powers of America, Britain, France and Russia. The central division between 'East and West' was in the city of Berlin.

The early barricade between East and West Berlin

Berlin at the end of the war was a badly damaged city, acting as a conduit of displaced persons who had been caught up in the Third Reich's war machine. With the Soviets controlling the Eastern German territory, Germans in that zone felt like prisoners.

The ravaged city

The conditions in the divided city were not good in the immediate years after WW2 and as such it started a drain of people towards the Western sector, where conditions were better. 

The Berlin Airlift of 1948-9

In 1948 as relations between the West and the Soviets deteriorated, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin ordered the blockade of West Berlin, which although under Allied occupation was some way behind the Allied lines.

The response was to fly in supplies to the Berlin people. Stalin likely thought this would not be successful, but the campaign was. When the media got hold of a story of a US Aircrew who dropped confectionary on handkerchief parachutes as they approached Templehof airport, the Soviets had lost the upper hand.

The zone was opened up to road traffic again in 1949, this marked the Soviet's loss of the Cold War. The public relations effort of the candy airmen had been instrumental. It was quite ironic that many of the pilots who flew in supplies to save the people of Berlin had only a few years earlier flown in to bomb the city during WW2.

The famous escaping DDR soldier

The people in the East German sector became involved in a protest in 1953 which led to the Soviets putting tanks on the streets, the East Germans wanted as part of their aims the reunification of the German nation, even though the Soviet leader Stalin died in this year, things did not change with regard to joining the nation back together.

Buildings close to the wire border offered routes of escape

So, with the border in Berlin being more forcefully guarded by the Eastern Bloc forces, other means of escape to the Western sector had to be found. Buildings close to the border offered some opportunities until they were bricked up, tunnels were dug and often found.

In 1962 a wall was built to divide the city of Berlin

In 1962, a wall was built to divide the city by means of a more permanent and divisive barrier than had been the case before. The vastly different lower standard of living and the oppressive control experience of the East German sector led people to seek a better life in the West.

With the wall there was little room for escape

From my friends in the former East Germany, they have told me about the nature of how their lives and as a people they were controlled and kept back, by the Soviet machine. This is a matter of record you can find anywhere on paper and personally from people who lived in the era. Some of the German people in control in the Eastern sector became in many cases quite fanatical about the communist state, which is very surprising. 

Dresden, post war, 

many examples of damaged buildings still existed into the 1960's and beyond

After many years, the people of the divided Germany had had enough of Soviet control. Previous uprisings in Germany in 1953, Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968 had been crushed by Soviet military intervention against the civilians who wanted change.

All that remains of the old division -

Some small sections of wall remain as memorials

In 1989 the Soviet Union started a process of disintegration and the reunification of Germany did occur as a result of the civilian population taking matters into their own hands, literally and pulling down the wall.

The East German control, under the spotlight of the world media did not fire a shot, as might have occurred in previous decades. 

Modern flats in West Berlin

Rather than any problems a unified Germany was feared to present, the reverse has happened, the nation has grown in prosperity, it hasn't started any aggressive actions against any other nations and the people of the Eastern sector have been released from the doomed political Communist system.

The Berlin wall only showed how much of a failure the political policies used to shackle the East German sector really were. The sector was held back and made dependent on their Soviet masters for many things. Ultimately this policy of total control failed, but the price of this experiment was great.

There may have been near full employment in the communist territories but it was largely state funded and jobs created for the sake of work not necessarily to advance the country.

The wall in Berlin divided the city but in the end it was emblematic as a symbol of failure that the people had to be restrained behind it, rather than be given freedom to move as they desired.

The European Communist ideology has shown itself to be a failure that hobbles people and ultimately the country it presides over. Probably why most countries in the formerly occupied region have thrown off this mindset and embraced free market economies.

The Berlin Airlift 70 years on - the moment that Stalin lost the Cold War

USAF C-54 flies in to Berlin's Templehof airport

In 1948, Joseph Stalin ordered the closing of access by land to West Berlin, which was part of a 4 power occupation zone.

The Lancastrian - conversion of the RAF Lancaster bomber from WW2

The response from the Allied powers - Britain and America was to fly in supplies by air to keep Berlin alive and functional.

The early days saw Lancaster bombers converted to civilian use called Lancastrians, along with C47 Dakota transports, start the process of supplying Berlin. Former German service personnel and civilian labour unloaded each aircraft in around ten minutes.

It is somewhat ironic that many of the volunteer civilian pilots who flew in the Berlin airlift had been RAF pilots some of whom had been bombing Berlin three years earlier.

C-54 Skymaster being refulled from a GMC 353 6x6 tanker

The USAF then brought in the C54 to increase the capacity for each trip. Throughout the transport campaign, Russian aircraft harassed the allied flights but stopped short of a formal attack, which would likely have led to another war starting.

A number of aircraft crashed on the hazardous flights

The flights were not without incident and aircraft were lost to accidents.

A memorial stands to the people who helped save Berlin

The medal for Humane action given for airlift particpants

The pilot who started the candy drops

The young people often gathered under the flight paths of the aircraft and one of the pilots decided to make up small parachutes which had chocolate bars or sweets as their payload, on one flight they let them go as they made their descent into Templehof airport and a legend was born.

This single bit of public relations which was from an unauthorised act of goodwill, was in public relations terms gold. Once the media had hold of the story, it was all over the world. 

Stalin had lost the authority to continue and the gates were opened to admit land access to West Berlin.