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Berlin Crisis - Coggle Diagram

- - - - 8 May 1949 - 3 days after the blockade ended, the USA, Britain and France joined their zones together to create a state known as the Federal Republic of Germany
        
        14 August 1949 - The Germans in this new country could elect their own parliament - the Bundestag
        
        15 September 1949 - Konrad Adenauer took office, the first democratically elected chancellor of the Federal Republic
        
        The new capital was Bonn, and three western-controlled zones of Berlin became known as West Berlin
- - - - The Soviet Union wanted to take German material back to help rebuild the Soviet Union
      - The Western Powers wanted to build up German economy so that, when it became wealthy, it could be a better trading partner and independently resist communism
        
        This led to a divided Germany with even tenser superpower relations.
- - - - June 1948: The three allies created a single currency (the Deutschmark) to give Trizonia economic unity. This angered the Soviets as now Trizonia was economically separated from the East, and the new boundary between East and West seemed official
        
        June 1948 - the Berlin Blockade: Stalin shut off land routes across Soviet controlled Germany into Berlin, to show the Allied powers that a divided Germany would not work. This would stop Trizonia from communicating with Berlin and the people would soon run out of food
        
        Stalins success could then lead to the Allies giving up their zones in Berlin, and would be a major Soviet propaganda success.
        
        This meant that the Allies had to act, as this was a direct threat to Truman and his recent speech about defending the world from communism.
        
        The West knew that they couldn't force supplied into Berlin as that could be interpreted as an act of wat leading to direct military confrontation. They theh decided to rather fly supplies in, as Stalin would be less likely to directly shoot down planes.
        
        26 June 1948 - The Berlin Airlift: The Western Allies began Operation Vittles - the Berlin Airlift - to fly food, coal and other essential supplies into the city from the Allied zones. The pilots were very wary as they could be easily shot down by Soviets.
        
        The people in West Berlin, and Western troops in the city created a new airport at Tegel for the supply planes to land, and ordinary citizens helped to unload the panes and distribute essentials.
        
        The Americans and British were soon flying in at least 1000 tonnes of supplies a day each; in January 1949 alone, 170,000 tonnes of supplied were flown into Berlin by Western aircraft
        
        9 May 1949: The Soviets gave in and lifted the blockade. The Allied airlift had worked, and West Berlin had survived. As well as the Soviet's propaganda failure, they now had to cope with the embarrassment of the Allies peaceful response to what seemed to be a foolish and aggressive Soviet act.