After the Reich (100 page)

Howley had been made American commandant at the Kommandatura on 1 December 1947. He was looking forward to a scrap too. He called his British counterpart, General Herbert, ‘shockingly defeatist’. When the Russians cut off the city in June, Herbert predicted that that would drive the Westerners out by October.
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He might have been conscious of just how weak the West was. In a reply to Senator Henry Cabot Lodge dated 5 March 1948, Clay detailed the strength of the American forces in Berlin - there were fewer than 2,000 soldiers. ‘It is obviously our desire to retain as small as garrison as possible.’ The Americans also had some German police auxiliaries, as the Russian-backed Markgraf Police (run by Paul Markgraf ) were not meant to function in the American Zone.
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On 18 March there was cause for a little celebration in Berlin. It was the centenary of the March Revolution of 1848 which had brought a brief triumph to the cause of the German middle classes, before they joined the more reactionary nobility and rallied behind Bismarck and the Empire. A crowd of 30,000 gathered at the ruined Reichstag. There were speeches from Franz Neumann of the SPD, Jakob Kaiser of the CDU and the mayor-elect, Ernst Reuter. Reuter alluded to the events in Prague. ‘Who will be next?’ he asked. Berlin would be next. ‘If the world knows this we will not be abandoned by the world.’
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The situation was worsening with each month. There were no barriers between the sectors, and those fleeing the Russians could try to disappear in the west of the city in the hope of finding a way out to the West. On 25 March the journalist Dieter Friede disappeared in a
Nacht und Nebel
kidnapping. The Soviet authorities later justified their actions by claiming that he was a spy. The ‘Mini Blockade’ was next. It began on 31 March and lasted until 2 April. The SBZ’s policy was improvised.
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This time it was provoked by an Anglo-American refusal to allow the Russians to board their military trains.
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One of these crossed the Soviet Zone daily. There were also several freight trains every week, thirty-two daily ‘paths’ - or crossings - to supply the garrison and the Germans and a daily passenger aircraft. It was a warning shot, a trial run. Three days later, on 2 April, the Allied Kommandatura was dissolved. More disappearances followed. Some 200,000 people were reported to have been forcibly taken to the USSR since the end of the war. The Berliners felt particularly vulnerable once again. The Russian-backed SED launched a propaganda campaign in the Western sectors.
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The Soviets had shown their hand in the communist takeover in Prague in February and Jan Masaryk’s suspicious death the following month. They were now openly demonstrating what was in store for their bloc. Truman understood that Berlin needed to be held for propaganda purposes; it was also necessary to stop the flow of communism west. ‘If we failed to maintain our position there, communism would gain great strength among the Germans.’
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Like Clay he gave the Germans no credit for being able to make up their own minds.

Prague brought the French down to earth. It was timely that Robert Schuman was president of the council, and possessed the sort of wise head France needed at the time. In March Koenig met Clay and Robertson in Berlin for talks on the German constitution and the French merging with Bizonia to form Trizonia. Koenig became predictably uppity at the idea of a ‘Reichstag’. On 6 April Couve de Murville flew to Germany to see Clay. He was concerned that Berlin might fall to the Russians. They also discussed currency reform. When the Russians did move to cut Berlin off from the west, the French foreign minister Bidault stressed that for the sake of Allied prestige there could be no backing down. Schuman, who had begun his political career in Germany, insisted that Berlin was a symbol that could not be abandoned. It was not thought politic that any French soldiers should
die
for Berlin, however, and the French air force was kept out of the operation, the excuse being that it was too weak - which was probably true.
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Airlift

Russian ‘milk snatchers’ formed the pretext for the airlift. The Russians were supposed to provide food for the entire population of Berlin, although the Western Allies donated the flour. To this end the Russians had 7,000 cows in suburban farms. In the early summer of 1948 they cut off the milk. Berliners were obliged to go to the east in lorries to collect it. The American medical officer reported to Howley: ‘Unless we get fresh milk, six thousand babies in our sector will be dead by Monday.’ Three years before, the Anglo-Americans had had fewer scruples about infant mortality. Howley saw Russian uncooperativeness as an attempt to intimidate the Americans and ordered in 200 tons of condensed milk and another 150 tons of powdered milk. Howley proudly reported that not one baby died in his sector.
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Clay thought he might keep his meagre garrison alive, but not the Germans. The Soviet attempt to prevent the Western Allies from reaching their sectors of the city provoked a discussion between Clay and Robertson on the legitimate response. The British decided they would not shoot if the Americans did not. ‘I believe this [the Russian move] is bluff,’ wrote Clay, ‘but do not wish to bluff back as British may be doing unless we mean it [
sic
].’
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The American secretary of the army, General Kenneth Royall, thought the president should send Stalin a note. He was not certain how serious the situation had become. Clay replied, ‘I do not believe this means war but any failure to meet this squarely will cause great trouble.’ He added that he would rather go to Siberia than abandon Berlin. The Soviets were now challenging the Western Allies’ right to be in Berlin in the first place. Clay cited the EAC agreement made during the war, by which the German capital would be administered by the three powers. Added to this there was the oral agreement with Zhukov of 5 June 1945 and ‘three years of application’. The right to provision the city and its Western garrisons was governed by mostly tacit or oral agreements.
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Clay was not prepared to put up with hair-splitting: ‘Legalistic argument no longer has meaning . . . our reply will not be misunderstood by 42 million Germans and perhaps 200 million West Europeans. We must say, we think, as our letter does, “this far you may go and no further.” There is no middle ground which is not appeasement.’
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Clay continued to see the idea of the Russians inspecting trains as the thin end of the wedge: the ‘integrity of our trains is a part of our sovereignty’. It was a ‘symbol of our position in Germany and in Europe’. When the Anglo-Americans put the Russian ‘bluff’ to the test the Soviet authorities would not let them cross the SBZ without prior inspection. The managers of the trains all refused bar one American, who panicked and let the Russians on board. The decision was made to switch to aircraft.
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That was also not without difficulties at first. On 5 April a Soviet Yak fighter dived under a scheduled British BEA Vickers Viking aircraft as it came into land at Gatow. As it rose it took off the starboard wing of the Viking. Both planes crashed, killing the fifteen British and American passengers and crew together with the pilot of the Yak. Robertson called for fighter protection for the transports and immediately went to see Sokolovsky in protest. The Russian commander was adamant that the pilot had had no orders from him to buzz the British plane. He would not direct the Soviet air force to molest flights in the corridor. Robertson was satisfied with his answer and called off the escort. Later the Russians showed a similar docility when there were complaints about the positioning of a barrage balloon. No one wanted to take responsibility for war.
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Clay was not going to budge. There was little or no freight for the time being, as it required permission from the Russians, ‘which I will not request’. The British had their own aircraft, but the French had ‘no air transport worthy of the name’ even if, for the time being, they were happy to keep their small force in Berlin. Clay was still stubbornly determined: ‘We are convinced that our remaining in Berlin is essential to our prestige in Germany and Europe. Whether for good or bad, it has become a symbol of American intent.’
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The balloon went up again when the Russians walked out of the Kommandatura on 17 June, Howley was relieved. They claimed that there was an urgent need to repair the roads near Magdeburg and the bridges over the Elbe, which therefore had to be closed. On 22 June the price of coffee had risen to RM3,000, bread was at 200 and a single Chesterfield was 65.
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On the 24th the motorway was blocked between Berlin and Helmstedt.
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Only military convoys were allowed to pass. They also cut off supplies of gas and electricity to the Western sectors of the city. Ruth Friedrich noted in her diary that an ‘iron curtain’ had abruptly fallen between Helmstadt and Marienborn.
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‘We poor little Berlin mice!’ They had spent all their money, and the Russians were doing their best to prevent the new currency from crossing their zone. ‘In the end the entirety of Berlin had harmed their stomachs in the prospect of currency reform.’
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The new currency was issued in the Western zones on 25 June at 7.00 a.m. That same day the Russians stopped the supply of brown coal to the city. From 7 July coal would also have to be brought in by air. ‘I do not expect armed conflict,’ wrote Clay; the ‘principal danger is from Russian-planned communist groups out looking for trouble’. For such a propagandist, he was surprisingly worried about the behaviour of the Berliners: ‘Perhaps the greatest danger comes from the amazing resistance of the Berlin population. This is driving the Soviet administration and the SED to further extreme measures.’
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‘June 24 1948’, wrote Howley grandiloquently, ‘is one of the most infamous dates in the history of civilisation. The Russians tried to murder an entire city to gain a political advantage.’
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There were 2,250,000 Germans in the Western sectors, and just 6,500 soldiers to protect them. The Russians had 18,000 men in their sector and another 300,000 stationed in their zone.
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In order to stress the weakness of the Western powers the Russians began military manoeuvres. Bevin, who (as opposed to Attlee) was running the show in London, chipped in by inviting the Americans to station B-29 bombers in Britain. It was hoped that this gesture would concentrate the Russians’ minds, even if there was no provision for their carrying nuclear weapons. Britain was rapidly becoming a client nation of the United States.
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The Berlin airlift began on 26 June. The idea came from the British. Air Commodore Reginald Waite proposed a scheme to supply the civilians as well as the garrisons. He and Robertson took the scheme to Clay, who up until then had preferred the idea of a convoy.
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General John Cannon was responsible for the name ‘Operation Vittles’. Ruth Friedrich noted the change: ‘The skies are buzzing as they did during the Blitz. For the time being the American military authorities have increased air traffic to Berlin to a maximum.’
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The density was to increase. At first the excuse was the need to provision the American and other Allied garrisons, then Clay made it clear that the Soviets would not be allowed to starve the Berliners in the Western sectors. For eleven months American C-47s (‘Gooney Birds’, which the Berliners called ‘Rosinenbomber’ or raisin bombers) and C-54s, as well as British cargo planes, under the command of the American Major-General Tunner and the Briton Air Marshal Williams flew in 4,000 tons of food daily. British Sunderland flying boats landed on the Havel, bringing much needed salt from Hamburg. At the height of Operation Vittles, 13,000 tons of food was delivered in twenty-four hours.

British planes left Frassberg for Gatow, while the Americans flew from Wiesbaden to Tempelhof. The Americans operated two-thirds of the flights, the British the rest. West Berlin was the prize won for the new, Allied-backed West German state.
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Clay wanted to know if American service families should be flown to safety. Truman advised against it, saying that it would have a bad ‘psychological effect’. Clay agreed to make ‘emergency arrangements for essential supplies’.
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The political nature of the blockade was swiftly understood by Truman. It was fully in keeping with his doctrine: this far but no further. He told Clay to make the blockade-busting formal. The humanitarian aspect was important, but so was access to the former capital. On 26 June Truman directed that the airlift be put on a full-scale organised basis. Every available aircraft was to be used.
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The same day the Russians introduced Order 111 which created their own currency. This took the form of coupons attached to existing banknotes. The coupons were stuck on with glue made from the ubiquitous potato. On the fourth exchange it fell off. The Berliners were quick to dub them
Tapetenmark
or wallpaper money. The new notes were ready on 26 July.

The SBZ authorities were credited with saying they were going to ‘Dry out the Western Sector as we would tie a tourniquet around a wart.’
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On 26 June it was reported that the Americans could provision the city for another thirty days. News was transmitted by the RIAS (Radio in American Sector) van. Ruth Friedrich remarked on the ‘frustration of being at the centre of the world stage and yet only [having] the chance to be informed of this between twelve midnight and two o’clock in the morning’. Meanwhile an aircraft flew over her head every eight minutes.
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