Berlin Crisis 1958 - 1961
The Berlin crisis from 1958 to 1961 is the second Berlin crisis in the Cold War, the first one being in 1948
and 49 with the Berlin blockade and the Berlin airlift. Do not confuse the Berlin blockade with this later
crisis that results in the Berlin Wall.
Divided Germany
. Germany since 1949 is permanently divided following the berlin airlift with now a new West German
State and East German State with the city of berlin that's going to maintain its four power occupation.
. West Germany: larger population and it is economically larger, greater industrial output. They have
received millions of dollars in Marshall Plan aid, and they have a democratic government.
. East Germany: the Soviet Union instituted forced collectivization of their farms and nationalization of
industry.
. This has stagnated agriculture and industrial production in East Germany.
. There have been no free elections in East Germany since 1946..
. In 1953 the workers of East Germany rose up in protest of their working conditions and their pay. And
this would be suppressed by Soviet tanks.
. This has resulted in thousands of East Germans attempting to migrate into West Germany, causing a
problem that Nikita Khrushchev characterized as the city of Berlin being a fishbone in East Germany's
gullet.
The crisis of 1958
. In 1958, this crisis begins where easy border crossings between East and West Berlin will lead to the
migration of young and primarily educated East Germans to the West.
. In November of 1958, Nikita Khrushchev petitioned that Berlin should be demilitarized and become a
free city with no occupation whatsoever.
. He threatened that this needed to happen within six months or he would give control of the access
routes to West Germany to the East German government.
. Khrushchev will ultimately back down from this ultimatum, but it did force a conversation about Berlin.
. Those conversations would take place in summits that the United States and the Soviet Union would
have.
. In 1959, Eisenhower and Khrushchev will meet in Camp David in the United States. And there were
future discussions planned in Moscow, but those conversations ceased after the U2 crisis in May of
1960.
. East Germans continued to flood into West Germany.
Kennedy the new US president
. In November of 1960, a presidential election in the United States that brings John F. Kennedy into the
presidency.
. he rolls out a new foreign policy approach to the threat of communism that he calls flexible democracy.
Response:
. more spending on conventional forces
. Enlarged nuclear arsenal
. Continuing to aid countries that were resisting communism.
This was seen as a move away from Eisenhower's brinkmanship policies of massive retaliation.
. Kennedy argued that we would need a wider choice between humiliation and all-out nuclear war.
. Khrushchev, from his part, sees this as some weakness and hopes he can push on the inexperienced
Kennedy to get what he wants in Berlin.
Migrations escalate & the wall is built
. With no resolution to the Berlin question, tens of thousands of East Berliners are continuing to move
into the West.
. On one day alone in August of 1961, 40,000 East Berliners moved to the West.
. This ultimately pushes Khrushchev and East Germany to close the border on August 13th, 1961.
. West Berlin would then be surrounded by initially barbed wire and later a concrete wall that will lock
East Berliners out of the West.
The meaning of the wall
. This isn't exactly a new Berlin blockade. There will still be access points through rail and road into West
Berlin.
. For Nikita Khrushchev, the building of the wall was an admission that Soviet propaganda had failed.
. The wall was needed to keep people from fleeing the communist world.
. For Berlin, it permanently divides that city and this wall will separate families and friends and they will
not be able to reconnect until the wall comes down in 1989.
. however, it eased some tensions in the Cold War, because just like the Berlin blockade and the Berlin
airlift ultimately resulted in a divided Germany that solved the question of how do we put Germany back
together again after World War II “we just don't”.
. This Berlin Wall is going to solve this new problem.
. So now this greatest area of tension is going to be closed off in Germany.
. Americans, protested the building of the wall, but threats of future conflict are going to ease.
The wall will forever be a symbol of the division between East and West.
And for the United States, this is a propaganda victory for American ideals in West Berlin.
