To Save a City: The Berlin Airlift, 1948-1949

The Berlin Crisis of 1948 had its origins in the dark mind of Joseph Stalin. Plans to interfere with Western access to Berlin were already hatched and harassment had begun by March 19, 1948, when the dictator met with German leaders of the Soviet-controlled Party of Socialist German Unity (SED). During the subsequent discussion, German communist leader Wilhelm Pieck warned that the elections scheduled for Berlin in October threatened a disaster for the SED. But, he argued, that humiliation could be prevented if, somehow, the Western powers could be removed from the city.