Why did Stalin Blockade Berlin in 1948?
The communist Soviet leader, Stalin decided to blockade Berlin meaning he closed off all railways, railroads, and canals leading to the western parts of the city. His reasons for this consisted of many events. The main reason was opposing views between the East and West. Stalin was a strong communist but the western leaders were strong believers in capitalism. Stalin’s wartime allies had since 1945 undermined him but to understand why he blockaded Berlin these reason needs to be examined in more depth starting with the Yalta conference.
In 1945 the Second World War was coming to an end and Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill met in the seaside resort of Yalta to discuss various issues where an agreement was made to temporally divide Germany. Each side decided to occupy a zone and so it was segregated into four sections. The peace conference was a success as the leaders co-operated well. Stalin had no assumption of trying to re-build Germany, as it had been defeated. The reasons for this was that Stalin did not want to make Germany stronger as he wanted to be able to control Germany ensure the Soviet was never threatened by Germany again. Instead of trying to re build Germany he let the economic power to be destroyed. Stalin did not want Germany to recover as he saw this as vital to Soviet security. Stalin commented “No they will recover, and very quickly. It is a highly developed industrial country with an extremely talented/skilled and numerous working class technical intelligence”. He thought it would take Germany twelve to fifteen years to get back on their feet. As the cold war developed the western powers became a lot more motivated and determined to make their zones better and stronger because the East was becoming more of a threat. Also because the west didn’t want to recreated conditions where another Hitler came to power. Stalin was angered by the west wanting to make Germany successful because he totally opposed this, as he clearly wanted Germany to be weak. This caused the west to intimidate the Soviet Union and Stalin.
