Cold War myths

The International Herald Tribune ^ | June 13, 2008 | Paul Steege

[neverdem]

VILLANOVA, Pennsylvania:

As the 60th anniversary of the Berlin Airlift approaches, recycled myths about its accomplishments drop from the sky like candy into the waiting arms of Americans hungry for a foreign policy alternative to endless war and secret torture. But politicians and pundits looking for a humanitarian policy to win the world's hearts and minds should look back to the airlift with caution.

Sixty years after British and American planes began to fly supplies to West Berliners facing a Soviet blockade, even the faux news program "Colbert Report" has reprised the Cold War refrain that the airlift saved the population from starvation and halted the Soviet advance across Europe. But the airlift never provided everything West Berliners needed to stay alive.

While the airlift delivered more than 2.3 million tons of supplies to Berlin, this amount failed to meet West Berlin's food needs, and the planes never even attempted to supply coal to heat private homes. The Western victory in this first Cold War battle came in spite of the fact that the airlift never achieved its ostensible purpose: to fully supply West Berlin.

That the West "won" depended first and foremost on Berliners' survival practices in the face of ongoing scarcity - practices that the great powers could not control and failed to understand. And this Western victory came with costs that were not obvious at the time and have largely been ignored in retrospect.

After World War II, the four victorious allies - Britain, France, the Soviet Union and the United States - divided Germany into occupation zones. Berlin, located more than 100 miles into the Soviet zone, was likewise divided into four occupation sectors. By spring 1948 the four-power structures designed to administer occupied Germany had collapsed.

On June 24, 1948, the Soviets halted rail and...

[metesky]

As the 60th anniversary of the Berlin Airlift approaches, recycled myths about its accomplishments drop from the sky like candy into the waiting arms of Americans hungry for a foreign policy alternative to endless war and secret torture.

Steege gives the game away in the very first paragraph.

[endthematrix]

reeducation camp

(I B not goin back to skewl!)

[paristwelve]

You must allow the “iht” scrip, I keep the others on “forbid”. Works great.

[americanophile]

as usual...America never really achieves anything, is never truly owed any gratitude...

[bruinbirdman]

"What is this, “The Joy of Historical Revision” week."

Coming to a history book at your high school:

More tomatoes were going from Russia to West Berlin than East.

Doncha know, West Berliners were really being fed by the Commies not Americans. And all the while the United States was negotiating to give East Germany to the Rooskies.

There was Gen. Marshall conniving with Uncle Joe. "If you don't agree to take East Germany, we will continue to fake this air lift propaganda."

yitbos

[eclecticEel]

Because 2.3 million tons of supplies is such an ephemeral, insignificant amount of provisions?

[Gondring]

So he goes on to say the West Berliners were also able to deal under-the-table with the Easterners and purchase and barter for what they needed (before the Wall sealed them off thirteen years later) in addition to what came off the planes.

So this professor is claiming that market economics, and not a big government program, met the peoples' needs? What a right-wing jerk!

;-)

[SkyPilot]

The International Herald Tribune is owned, controlled, and operated by the odious NY Slimes.

The propagandist who wrote this, Paul Steege, seems quite irritated that the Berlin Airlift resulted in Freedom winning over Oppression.

But that is typical of the Left.

The historical fact is, the Soviets had to back down and the entire world took notice.

Furthermore, Paul Steege is a red diaper baby who "teaches" at Villanova.

_{Department of History
Villanova University, 800 Lancaster Avenue, Villanova, PA 19085-1699
tel. 610.519.6963, fax 610.519.4450
paul.steege@villanova.edu}

[FreedomPoster]

Amongst the Democrats and Greens.

[Keith Brown]

“Well, there you have it. Next he’ll say we didn’t really take Normandy on D-day.”

Or better yet...

We shouldn’t have....because it was insensitive to attack w/o negotiating, and bad for the environment...and unnecessary.

[lexusppd]

What a load of crap! The Berlin Airlift was never meant to nor did we ever expect it would supply “all the needs” of Berliners. The idea was to take away the goal of Russia to hold the citizens hostage while the pursued their nefarious goals.

WE wanted to outlast them and we did.

[iopscusa]

Good advice to any Leftist that still has a bit of patriotism flickering in their small brains is to “google” the ‘Venona intercepts’

[Nailbiter]

ping

[Gondring]

you read the whole story at the link and came to that conclusion?

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

In fact, Berlin was a site of Western (and especially American) strength. Even at the height of the blockade, German communists in Berlin repeatedly expressed how they felt besieged in the city.

As well they should have. We were already fighting communism even then. We didn't suffer fools and enemy enablers like we do today.

[Chinstrap61a]

Steege is an idiot.

1. West Berlin stayed free. The objective of the Soviets was to seize West Berlin, they lost.

2. The airlift demonstrated to the very recently vanquished Berliners that the West would stand by them and not let them fall to the Communists.

3. The airlift demonstrated to the Soviets that their bid for greater hegemony over Europe would be stopped.

People that claim to be historians should study history and apply logic, not make up fantasies - if the West hadn't carried out the airlift and its simultaneously conducted military movements and diplomatic response, Berlin would have fallen, whether the black marketeers were resourceful or not: the Soviets had T-34 tanks - the Berliners didn't.

Villanova's standards seem to have slipped.

[Colonel Kangaroo]

Some smart scholar should have told those dumb Berliners of that day that the USA was of no help when Berliners overwhelmingly expressed profound gratitude to General Lucius Clay and the Americans.

[sionnsar]

Amongst the Democrats and Greens.

You have that exactly correct!

[sionnsar]

Very well put, and thank you!

[jmaroneps37]

I will guess that this man is a liberal democrat. I say this because liberals don't understand dynamic scoring. They never have and never will. The liberal democrat only believes in lineal progression. So in this fool's mind unless every Berliner was fed and had heating fuel
( presumably even at the end of the operation in June )the operation failed. The enormous value it has in making the choice of sides, either with good or with evil is of course way beyond his understand. These people are always so easy to figure out.