Case Study: The West Berlin Airlift

The U.S needed serious support if they wanted the airlift succeed. The massive population of West Berlin gave the most doubt among contemporaries. However, a key component many seem to forget is the fact that Stalin cut off all electricity and transportation through West Berlin, which resulted in jobless Berliners. Stalin’s move proved un-strategic, as jobless Berliners now had time to help support the airlift. Doing jobs such as loading and unloading planes, transporting goods, and other laborious tasks, the people of Berlin provided the much needed support the U.S was looking for. Although the Berliners support helped make the airlift successful, many contemporaries still believed the airlift would fail, and thus other action were being taken.

While Berliners were relying on air transport everyday, missing a single day due to weather could lead to potential starvation. Technology at the time was unable to predict the weather as accurate as we can today, and even still, it is not perfect. Additional task forces were created too monitor the weather 24/7, because conditions were expected to be dangerous. Beginning in June, many believed the airlift would not make it past October due to hazard winter conditions in Berlin. While the weather was a major reason that Germany failed in its attempt at an airlift, the U.S seemed to be out of options. This was a major reason the airlift was viewed as a stop gate, until the U.S could figure out a viable and less costly solution by winter.
Never the less, as one might have already assumed, the weather sided with the U.S. “In January the weather turned unseasonably mild with no frost (in January two years earlier, by contrast, Berlin had seen 281 hours of very severe frost and a further 97 hours of severe frost.” This was a major feet in the Berlin Airlift succeeding, and an act of nature many contemporaries were not expecting. Without the help of a mild winter, many believed the airlift would have failed. With the Soviets now in shock, the U.S would were now in