Sixty-one years ago today, the Soviet Union ceased its 11-month blockade of West Berlin, ending one of the first standoffs of the Cold War. Threatened by the new currency introduced to the city by Western powers, the Soviets began a total blockade of all rail, road, and waterways into Berlin, expecting the war-torn city to have little choice but to submit to Communist control.
It didn’t happen. U.S. and British forces reacted by initiating the largest airlift in history, sending more than 2 million tons of supplies over 278,288 relief missions. As the Soviets had cut off all power supplies, coal accounted for more than two-thirds of the materials. In April 1949, at the peak of the airlift, there was a supply plane landing in Berlin every minute.
After nearly a year, the Soviets ceased the blockade, and within months the governments of East and West Germany were established. For decades, tensions between the two halves of the city continued, but in 1989 the Berlin Wall was finally torn down, symbolizing the end of the Cold War and bringing together a nation held apart for more than fifty years.
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