The Cold War — Impact

By 1949 the wartime alliance between the USA and the USSR had broken down. How that rivalry began, and how the USSR took control of Eastern Europe, is covered in the lesson on Cold War causes. What followed was a crisis that turned a political quarrel into a military standoff.

In 1945 the Allies agreed to divide Germany into occupation sectors. Berlin, the old capital, was divided into sectors in the same way, even though the city sat deep inside the Soviet-controlled east. The USA and USSR could not agree on what a united Germany should look like, politically or economically. So the two zones drifted into two separate states, a westernised West Germany and a sovietised East Germany.

The Western powers argued that they had to stay in Berlin. Germany would one day be reunited, and they wanted a presence in its capital when that happened. The Soviets wanted them out. In 1948 they cut every road and rail route from West Germany into Berlin, trying to push the Western powers out.

The USA and Britain, helped by aircrews from other Western allies, answered with a huge airlift, flying in supplies for millions of West Berliners. The blockade failed and the USSR eventually lifted it. The consequences reached far beyond the city.

• The crisis of 1948–49 created genuine fear that a third world war was about to start.
• The hope of a united Germany, promised during the war, was dead. Each side now had its own German state, and each blamed the other. The USA accused the USSR of blocking free elections in the East. The USSR accused the USA of building a separate West German economy.
• The USA decided that words were not enough. It needed a permanent military presence in Europe to deter any further Soviet expansion and to contain communism in the east.