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Definition: Berlin airlift from Brewer's Dictionary of Modern Phrase and Fable

The operation by British and US aircraft to airlift food and supplies to Berlin in 1948, when the Soviet occupying army in eastern Germany blockaded all road, rail and water links between Berlin and the West. The Russians had taken this action in retaliation for the Western powers' decision to unite their German occupation zones into a single economic entity. When the blockade was lifted in 1949 the city was formally divided into East and West.

Berlin blockade

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather Guide
The closing of entry to Berlin from the west by Soviet Forces from June 1948 to May 1949. It was an attempt to prevent the other Allies (the USA, France, and the UK) unifying the western part of Germany. The British and US forces responded by sending supplies to the city by air for over a year (the Berlin airlift ). In May 1949 the blockade was lifted; the airlift continued until September. The blockade marked the formal division of the city into Eastern and Western sectors. In 1961 East Berlin was sealed off with the construction of the Berlin Wall . Berlin was well within Soviet-occupied East Germany, but the city, like the whole of Germany, was divided into four occupational zones, under the jurisdiction of the Allied Control Council. In March 1948 the Allies decided to unite their occupation zones by creating a single currency in West Germany (and in West Berlin). The Soviet government perceived the new Deutsche Mark as a threat to the East German economy. In June 1948 Soviet…
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Full text Article BERLIN BLOCKADE

From The Reader's Companion to American History
The Berlin blockade was an attempt in 1948 by the Soviet Union to limit the ability of France, Great Britain, and the United States to travel to their sectors of Berlin, which lay within Russian-occupied East Germany. The agreement after World War II to divide Germany and Berlin into occupation…
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Full text Article Berlin blockade and airlift

From Britannica Concise Encyclopedia
(1948–49) International crises that arose from an attempt by the Soviet Union to force the Allied powers (U.S., Britain, and France) to abandon their postwar jurisdictions in West Berlin. The Soviets, regarding the economic consolidation of the three Allied occupation zones in Germany in 1948 as a…
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Full text Article Berlin blockade

From Encyclopedia of American Foreign Policy
Established on June 24, 1948 by the Soviet Union,...
Also known as: Berlin crisis, 1948 1948–1949 early cold war crisis Berlin was a divided city within a divided country. World War II summit conferences, most notably at Yalta , had divided Germany into four occupation zones. Berlin, the capital of the Third Reich, was located 110 miles inside of the…
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1948–1949 The Berlin blockade was a diplomatic crisis and military operation during the cold war precipitated by the Soviet Union's blockade of the city of Berlin from June 18, 1948, to May 12, 1949, and the subsequent relief effort launched by the United States, the United Kingdom, and France to…
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Full text Article Berlin blockade

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather Guide
The closing of entry to Berlin from the west by Soviet Forces from June 1948 to May 1949. It was an attempt to prevent the other Allies (the USA, France, and the UK) unifying the western part of Germany. The British and US forces responded by sending supplies to the city by air for over a year (the…
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Full text Article BERLIN BLOCKADE AND AIRLIFT

From The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Military and Diplomatic History
On 24 June 1948, the Soviet Union cut off rail, highway, and water access routes from the western zones of Germany into Berlin. In reaction, the three Western occupying powers—the United States, Great Britain, and France—blocked supplies going into the eastern zone and instituted an airlift of food…
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Full text Article Berlin Blockade

From Chambers Dictionary of World History
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Full text Article Clay, Lucius D(uBignon)

From Britannica Concise Encyclopedia
(born April 23, 1897, Marietta, Ga., U.S.—died April 16, 1978, Cape Cod, Mass.) U.S. army officer. After graduating from West Point, he served in various military engineering assignments. In World War II he directed the U.S. Army procurement program (1942–44). In 1945 he was appointed deputy…
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Full text Article blockade

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather Guide
Cutting-off of a place by hostile forces by land, sea, or air so as to prevent any movement to or fro, in order to compel a surrender without attack or to achieve some other political aim (for example, the Berlin blockade (1948) and Union blockade of Confederate ports during the American Civil War). …
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Full text Article Germany, Cold War

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather Guide
Following World War II, disagreement among the wartime Allies over the future of Germany became one of the first flashpoints of the Cold War . On the one hand the USSR sought to weaken Germany in order to avoid future war, and promote communism ; on the other, the Western Allies (the USA, UK, and…
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