Lifting of the Berlin Blockade

The Lifting of the Berlin Blockade on May 12, 1949, brought a fourteen-month crisis to an end and marked a consequential victory for Harry S. Truman’s policy of holding firm without turning the confrontation into war. The blockade had backfired: the airlift sustained Berlin, and the Soviet Union ultimately backed down.

Causes and Background

The resolution followed the airlift’s established success. Recognizing that the blockade had failed to achieve its purpose, the Soviet side signaled a change in attitude. Secret negotiations followed; as Chip Bohlen observed, serious Soviet efforts were often conducted in secret. The contest had shifted from whether Berlin could be supplied to whether the blockade could be maintained in the face of that supply operation.

The Blockade Ends

On May 12, 1949, the blockade ended, and the lights of Berlin came on again. The airlift, which had lasted a year and two months, was over. Its scale was striking: 277,804 flights had delivered 2,325,809 tons of food and supplies. Those figures give the outcome its material measure: the city had been sustained through an extraordinary logistical effort until the blockade was lifted.

Consequences and Significance

For Truman, the end of the blockade was a momentous victory. Firmness and patience had prevailed without resort to force, and war had been averted. On the same day, the Allied powers approved the establishment of a new German Federated Republic, with West Germans to govern themselves through a government at Bonn. The lifting therefore coincided with a further political reordering in western Germany, while Berlin’s restored lights signaled the end of the immediate blockade crisis.