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Duration: 00:04:53
Subject: Berlin (Germany) Blockade, 1948-1949; Berlin (Germany) History 1945-1990; Air traffic control; Great Britain. Royal Air Force; Air force
Copyright Holder: Public Domain
Clip Description
Politics and geography made Berlin the gravest and most persistent source of tension in the nuclear age. On June 24, 1948, the Soviet Union sealed off Berlin by a total blockade in an effort to gain control of the partitioned city. Washington rejected proposals to send an armed convoy or armed train into Berlin that might precipitate war. Instead, Operation Vittles-a massive round-the-clock airlift to supply indefinitely Berlin's 2.2 million people with food and fuel-began. This segment-a section of a contemporary newsreel-shows various facets of the shuttle operation, which lasted for more than a year. Several months before the operation ended, Soviet premier Joseph Stalin lifted the blockade, and trucks and trains resumed transit to Berlin.
