The Division of Germany and the Berlin Blockade

At the end of World War II in Europe on May 8, 1945, Soviet and Western (U.S., British & French) troops were spread across Germany.
The Allies decided to divide Germany into four occupation zones.
Berlin, the German capital, was also divided into four zones.
The French, American, and British zones of Berlin were surrounded by the Soviets because Berlin was deep within Russian territory.

The Allies knew Germany had to be rebuilt after the war but were worried about a strong Germany becoming a future threat.
The plan was to slowly rebuild the country to 50% of its 1938 strength.
Joseph Stalin and the Soviets were happy with the plan because they wanted a weak Germany between Russia and the Western Allies.
As part of this plan, entire German factories were torn apart and shipped to Russia to be rebuilt.
However, a weak German economy hurt all of Europe, so the Americans started a plan to pump money into Germany to rebuild it faster.
Joseph Stalin was angry because he saw this as Americans trying to infiltrate Russia through Germany.

As the Americans began pumping money into the German economy, the Russians became more suspicious.
Stalin wanted to destroy Germany's ability to make war, but the Americans understood that Germany needed to rebuild for the rest of Europe to survive.
The old friends were now becoming quick enemies.
The Americans decided that if they couldn't unify all of Germany with Russia's help, then they would rebuild their side - Western Germany.

On June 12, 1948, the USSR declared that the highway coming into Berlin from West Germany was "closed for repairs."
Three days later, road traffic between the West and the Eastern parts of Germany was stopped.
The Soviets cut off all train traffic between the zones.
The Russians said they would no longer send food from their Eastern zone into the American/British/French zones of Berlin.
By cutting off all transportation and food to the Western Allies Zones in Berlin, Stalin was trying to force them out.
After Stalin cut off food to the Western Zone of Berlin, the people had 35 days worth of food left and 45 days worth of coal to heat their homes.
The Western Allies were greatly outnumbered by the Russians, as they were in the Russian Zone.
If a conflict had started, the Americans, British, and French would certainly have lost their Berlin Zones.

Though the ground routes to Western Berlin were cut off, the Soviets could not do the same thing in the air.
The Soviets couldn't claim that cargo airplanes carrying food were a military threat.
The only way the Russians could keep their blockade would be to shoot down an unarmed plane and start World War Three!

Once the Russians realized that the Western Allies could actually pull off their plan, they began to take action.
The Soviets offered free food to anyone who would cross the boundary from West Berlin into Russian-controlled East Berlin.
The Soviets also began harassing the airplanes - they would buzz cargo planes or shoot into the air near them.
Anti-air bullets were randomly fired into the air and searchlights would be shone on the cargo planes.
But none of these tactics proved very successful for the Russians.

The continued success of the Airlift humiliated the Soviets, so within a few days the Russians agreed to re-open the roads and railways.
As soon as they opened, British and Americans trucks and trains were on their way to resupply Western Berlin.
After 15 months of bringing supplies in by airplane, some $2,326,406$ tons of food and supplies were delivered on $278,228$ flights to Berlin.
Altogether the Western Allies flew over $92$ million miles, which is almost the same distance from the Earth to the Sun.
There were a total of $101$ deaths over the entire operation, mostly because of airplane crashes.