Berlin, city, Germany: Divided Berlin
Divided Berlin
On May 8, 1945, Germany's unconditional surrender to the Allies was signed in Berlin. The division of the city into sectors by the Potsdam Conference resulted in severe tension between the Soviet Union and the Western powers. The Soviets occupied the sector that subsequently became known as East Berlin. The zones assigned to the British, American, and French occupation forces constituted West Berlin. The French occupied the NW part of the city, and the Americans and the British occupied the S districts. The joint Allied military government (
The status of Berlin became a major cold war issue, and attempts at international agreement ended in deadlock (see Foreign Ministers, Council of) as the USSR sought to remove all Western (including West German) control from West Berlin and the Western powers maintained that settlement of the Berlin problem depended on reunification of Germany. In 1948, Soviet authorities established a blockade on all land and water communications between West Berlin and West Germany. The Western powers, foremost among them the United States, successfully undertook to supply West Berlin by a large-scale airlift through three air “corridors” left open to them (see Berlin airlift). The blockade was withdrawn in May, 1949, and the airlift ended in Sept., 1949. In that year East Berlin was proclaimed the capital of the new German Democratic Republic, and in 1950 West Berlin was established as one of the states of the Federal Republic of Germany (of which Berlin was the de jure capital and Bonn the de facto capital).
In the following years there were several Berlin crises, as the USSR in unilateral declarations, often accompanied by harassing actions, contested the legal basis for the Western powers' presence in and access to West Berlin. Meanwhile better living conditions in the western zone had led to a massive exodus of refugees from East to West, which was both a great embarrassment for the Communists and a serious drain on the East German labor supply. To stop the flow, East Germany gave the division of the city a grimly physical form in Aug., 1961, by erecting the 29-mi (47-km) fortified Berlin Wall along the partition line, leaving only a few closely guarded crossing points.
The Western powers protested vigorously but ineffectively, and East German border guards killed dozens of persons attempting to break through the barrier. War seemed near as Soviet and American tanks faced each other at the border crossings, but after 1962 the crisis eased. In Dec., 1963, the first of several agreements was reached permitting West Berliners to visit relatives in the eastern zone. Visits across the wall and access to West Berlin from West Germany were finally regularized in the Berlin accords reached among the four powers and the two Germanys in 1972.
Sections in this article:
- Introduction
- Reunification
- Divided Berlin
- Early History to World War II
- Institutions and Attractions
- Economy
- Bibliography
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