“The 1948 Berlin Crisis was the most crucial event in the development of the Cold War between 1945 and 1955.” How far do you agree with this statement?

After the end of World War II, Germany and Berlin had been split up into four parts. The Northwest belonged to Britain, the Southwest by France, the Southeast belonged to America and the Northeast by the Soviet Union. The West of Germany (under the British, French and American rule) was brought under a Capitalist rule while the Soviet East was under a Communist rule. The West was prospering under the Capitalist rule but the Communist east was very poor and there were many homeless and poverty stricken people. They started moving to the West and the West reached 16,000,000 refugees in May 1949. 16,000,000 people are a lot of people to control and they found it hard to do so. To deal with the problem, the West brought out a new currency. Stalin and the Russians were furious when they heard about this. He refused to allow any economic recovery in his zone. He then imposed a blockade of West Berlin to drive out the Western powers from Berlin all together because if had taken control of West Berlin, then he would probably have ended up taking control of the whole of Germany. The blockade involved blocking land routes.

The Western powers decided not to let Stalin take control of West Berlin, partly for the reason just stated above. They took a gamble and tried flying supplies into Berlin. The gamble paid off and Berlin was well supplied in everything it needed. After 318 days, Stalin eventually backed down and West Germany stayed out of communist rule. Now Germany had split into two parts. The West, under Western control, was now called the Federal Republic of Germany. It had a new currency and life was looking up. The Russians thought that the West was trying to let Nazism relive by giving them the new currency. The West however, was poor under the communist rule. Life was very bad there and there was lots of poverty and starvation. Eastern Germany was now called the German Democratic Republic although it wasn't very democratic.

In 1949, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation was set up. It was an agreement by Western Europe that they would defend each other in times of attack. The implication was that the source of any trouble would be the Soviet Union. The Russians regarded NATO as an aggressive organisation pretended to be a peaceful one. In response the set up of NATO, the Soviets set up the Warsaw Pact that was basically the same as NATO but for the Soviets.

The Russians then detonated their first atomic weapon. I believe that this was just as important as the Berlin Crisis because now an arms race started involving each side striving to make bigger and better atomic weapons. This was very dangerous, as at this time, a war was imminent and so if anything else had happened, then the human race could have been destroyed.

In the summer of 1949, a communist revolution broke out in China. The communist leader was Mao Tse Tung. The communist revolution spread fear into the hearts of the Western leaders as they now knew how easily and quickly communism was spreading. This event particularly made the Americans determined to resist the spread of communism in Southeast Asia. (E.g. Korea and Vietnam)

In 1950, the communists in North Korea invaded the south (Korea had been divided into a Communist North and Capitalist South). North Korean troops quickly pushed the South Koreans to the southeast corner of their territory. The United Nations Security Council voted to send an army to Korea to fight the Communists. At the time, the Russia were boycotting the UN in the protest against the UN's refusal to recognise the communist government of China. If they were present, they could have vetoed the decision. So, a large army, led by MacArthur, pushed the North Koreans back to the Chinese border. China then joined in on the North Korean's side. MacArthur suggested a nuclear strike. Truman saw the possible effects of the strike and so duly sacked MacAthur. He then made peace and Korea remained divided as it was.

Looking at this evidence, it is fair to say that the Berlin Crisis was an important part of the Cold War but it definitely wasn't the only important part or the only factor of the Cold War.

Anthony Cowan