Snippet #2107983

On the 18th of June 1948 the Soviets launched a massive propaganda campaign condemning Britain, the United States and France by radio, newspaper and loudspeaker. The Soviets conducted well-advertised military maneuvers just outside the city. Rumors of a potential occupation by Soviet troops spread quickly.
The Soviets then severed land and water communications between the non-Soviet zones and Berlin. That same day, they halted all rail and barge traffic in and out of Berlin. On the 25th of June, the Soviets stopped supplying food to the civilian population in the non-Soviet sectors of Berlin. Motor traffic from Berlin to the western zones was permitted, but this required a 23 kilometer detour to a ferry crossing because of alleged "repairs" to a bridge. They also cut off the electricity relied on by Berlin, using their control over the generating plants in the Soviet zone.

Surface traffic from non-Soviet zones to Berlin was blockaded, leaving open only the air corridors. The Soviets rejected arguments that the occupation rights in the non-Soviet sectors of Berlin and the use of the supply routes during the previous three years had given Britain, France and the United States a legal claim to use of the highways, tunnels, railroads, and canals. Relying on Soviet good will after the war, Britain, France, and the United States had never negotiated an agreement with the Soviets to guarantee these land-based rights of access to Berlin through the Soviet zone.

At the time, West Berlin had thirty-six days' worth of food, and forty-five days' worth of coal. Militarily, the Americans and British were greatly outnumbered due to the postwar scaling back of their armies. The United States, like other western countries, had disbanded most of its troops and was largely inferior in the European theater. Military forces in the western sectors of Berlin numbered only 8,973 Americans, 7,606 British and 6,100 French.

Soviet military forces in the Soviet sector that surrounded Berlin totaled one and a half million. The two United States regiments in Berlin could have provided little resistance against a Soviet attack.

The post-war German citizens of west Berlin were starving and under total control of the Soviet Union, something needed to be done, lest the situation deteriorate into an obscene Holocaust of violence and rioting in the streets.