The Berlin Airlift and the Birth of the New World Order (Part 2)

Summary

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HISTORY This Week — The Berlin Airlift and the Birth of the New World Order (Part 2)

Podcast: HISTORY This Week
Host: John Earl
Guest: Giles Milton, Author of "Checkmate in Berlin"
Release Date: May 11, 2026

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Brief Overview

This episode explores the dramatic story of the Berlin Airlift (1948-49) and how it shaped the postwar world order. Through expert interviews, eyewitness accounts, and vivid storytelling, the podcast traces the mounting tensions between Soviet and Western Allied forces, the unprecedented logistical challenge of supplying a besieged city by air, and the ultimate birth of NATO. The episode illustrates how a single city’s struggle became a fulcrum for the Cold War, establishing the ideologies and alliances that still impact global politics today.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Celebrations and Symbolism (02:00–04:00)

• May 12, 1949: End of the Berlin Blockade; city erupts in celebration.
• Mayor Ernst Reuter declares a public holiday, addressing 300,000 Berliners.
• Brigadier General Frank Howley, dubbed “Howlin’ Mad Haoli” by troops, is acknowledged as a central figure in Berlin’s survival.

Tensions at War’s End (04:12–07:23)

• Arrival in Berlin (1945): Howley tries to enter Berlin but is denied at the Soviet checkpoint, setting the stage for future conflict.
  • Giles Milton: “The Soviet soldier at the frontier post just denied him access... Frank Howley said, 'There's an agreement. I'm allowed in...' And the Soviets said, 'No, you're not.'” [05:33]
• The city is divided among four powers, but antagonisms quickly surface.
• Berlin’s geography makes it “like a medieval castle surrounded by a sea of red” — vulnerable to a Soviet siege. [06:14]

Hardball in Berlin Command (06:55–09:23)

• Howley is determined to stand up to the Soviets:
  • Giles Milton: “Within a couple of days... he said, ‘There’s only one way to deal with gangsters, and that’s to treat them like gangsters.’” [06:55]
• The city is destitute: no water, electricity, government, or food.
• Food distribution becomes political leverage:
  • Milton quoting Soviet deputy: “My dear Colonel Howley, that is exactly when you should kick them [the weak, the sick].” [09:17]

Roots of the Cold War (10:02–11:58)

• Stalin’s view: controlling Eastern/Central Europe as a buffer against future invasions.
  • Giles Milton: “Stalin, he saw capturing eastern Europe... as an essential buffer zone.” [10:02]
• Churchill’s “Iron Curtain” speech signals formal end of wartime alliances and start of Cold War.
  • Archival Churchill: “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent.” [10:49]

The Splintering of Berlin (11:16–14:02)

• Berlin divides into East and West sectors, with two governments and police forces.
• 1948: Western Allies introduce the Deutsche Mark without Soviet approval (Operation Bird Dog), triggering the Soviet blockade.
  • Giles Milton: “The Soviets break all ties with their former partners in the Western sectors.” [13:32]
• Berliners are stranded: “We poor little mice of Berlin.” [14:02]

Surviving the Blockade & Launching the Airlift (17:52–21:35)

• Soviets cut off power: sanitation collapses, turning West Berlin into a city of dire deprivation.
  • Giles Milton: “The sewage system couldn’t work… Within hours, sewage is pouring into the many lakes and rivers.” [18:08]
• West Berliners face starvation and Soviet incursion; Americans are vastly outnumbered.
• Hawley calculates they need 4,500 tons per day, but available planes can’t deliver that volume.
  • Milton: “The only planes he’s got are Dakota C47s... a Dakota C47 can carry 2 1/2 tons on any given flight.” [19:47]
• British officer Reginald Waite, through logistical ingenuity, demonstrates airlift is almost possible with precise scheduling.
  • Milton: “If you had planes flying in at five different levels... around the clock... you could just about do it.” [21:25]

High-Level Gamble: Truman Greenlights the Airlift (22:14–23:18)

• Military brass are skeptical: “It can't be done. We've got to get out.”
• President Truman overrules them:
  • Milton: “Don’t worry, I’ve just overruled all of my joint chiefs of staff. The Berlin airlift is going to continue.” [22:59]
• Thus begins the largest sustained air supply operation in history.

Civilian Hard Choice: Starve or Surrender? (25:00–26:31)

• West Berliners can escape starvation by switching to the Soviet side, but one can’t easily return.
  • Milton: “If you crossed into East Berlin and signed up... essentially you were locked into the Soviet system.” [25:30]
• Howley, skilled in propaganda, rallies civilian spirit via radio: “The American people will not allow the German people to starve.” [26:13]

The Airlift in Action — Dramatic Details (26:31–29:47)

• Planes land at West Berlin airports every three minutes, with Allies even building new runways from ruins.
• Soviet harassment: searchlights, incendiary bullets — but no direct attack on planes, avoiding outright war.
  • Milton: “Stalin didn’t ever dare to try and shoot the planes out of the sky.” [27:42]
• Danger & cost: over 80 dead in crashes.
• Easter Parade (Liftathon): Allies land 12,941 tons in a single day, morale soars, Soviet resolve breaks.
  • Milton: “They did spectacularly. I think it was 12,900 tons.” [29:43]
  • John Earl: “A plane lands every 63 seconds.” [28:59]

Victory and the New World Order (30:05–34:02)

• Soviet counter-blockade by Allies cripples East Germany; Soviets lift blockade at 12:01am, May 12, 1949.
• Berliners rejoice: “The west has won.” [31:55]
• The crisis leads directly to the creation of NATO in April 1949: an attack on one = attack on all.
  • Milton: “The signatories to this treaty agree... an attack on one... is considered to be an attack on all of them.” [32:31]
• The Airlift cements Western unity and ushers in a new global security architecture; episode closes by pondering the fragility of that order in today’s world.

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On postwar Berlin:
  Giles Milton: “There was no running water, there was no electricity, there was no gas. There was no civil government at all whatsoever. And yeah, no food. It was a desperate situation.” [07:28]

• On food as a weapon:
  Soviet deputy: “My dear colonel Howley, that is exactly when you should kick them.” [09:17]

• Stalin’s gamble:
  John Earl: "Hawley knows that if the Russians invade, the west doesn't stand a chance. Soviet soldiers outnumber Western forces 62 to 1 in the region. Still, Hawley goes on the radio and declares, 'we are ready for you.'" [18:23]

• On the scale of the Airlift:
  John Earl: "A plane lands every 63 seconds. The Soviet air controller storms out of the joint control room in protest. 'Your planes are coming in too fast,' he yells…" [28:59]

• The lasting impact:
  Giles Milton: "The west has won. And I think for Berliners, that was true, because... they knew that nothing now could impede or impinge on their lives. In West Berlin, they were going to be safe for as long as the west was there." [31:55]

• NATO’s birth:
  John Earl: “America’s commitment to defend Western Europe becomes fundamental to the post war order. It’s a commitment that today seems uncertain.” [32:51]

• On living through historical anxiety:
  Giles Milton: "What happened in Berlin in the post war period remains incredibly important because I feel we’re at the tail end of the post war order. We’re entering a new period of great uncertainty…" [33:00]

• Churchill’s warning:
  Archival: “If... these all important years are allowed to slip away, then indeed catastrophe, catastrophe may overwhelm us all.” [33:42]

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Important Timestamps

• 02:00 — Celebrations in liberated West Berlin
• 05:33 — Howley denied Berlin entry; Cold War bitterness begins
• 09:17 — Soviet strategy: food as political weapon
• 10:49 — Churchill’s "Iron Curtain" speech
• 13:32 — Soviet ties break; Berlin Blockade begins
• 17:52 — Soviet blockade cuts off power and supplies
• 21:25 — Reginald Waite’s logistics unlock the airlift
• 22:59 — President Truman orders the Airlift to continue
• 25:30 — Civilian choices: starve or switch sides
• 28:59 — "Easter Parade": 12,941 tons delivered, Allies morale soars
• 31:55 — Berliners declare "The west has won"
• 32:31 — NATO is born
• 33:00 — Reflection on the Cold War order’s legacy and fragility

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Episode Tone

• Narrative, urgent, sometimes wry
• Vivid storytelling from the perspectives of both leaders and ordinary Berliners
• Engages with moral ambiguity and historical contingency

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For Further Study or Reading

• Guest: Giles Milton, Checkmate in Berlin
• Other sources: Battleground Berlin by Ruth Andreas Friedrich, Berlin Command by Frank Howley, Daring Young Men by Richard Reeves

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This episode provides a detailed, real-world look at how a city’s siege became the crucible for a new global order—and how those lessons still matter today.

Transcript

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[John Earl (Host, History This Week)]

history this week, May 12, 1949 I'm John Earl it's the party of a lifetime. After 11 long months under blockade, the people of West Berlin are finally free to come and go as they please. Train service is restored, the Autobahn reopens, and food, fuel and supplies flood back into the city. And Berliners are celebrating all of it. West Berlin Mayor Ernst Reuter has declared today a public holiday. Outside town hall. He addresses a cheering crowd of 300,000. The blockade is ended. He declares Berlin will always remain Berlin. Joining Reuter on the grandstand is an American officer. His jet black hair is combed high in a bouffant. His ears stick out like sails. The Soviets call him the beast of Berlin. His troops call him Howlin Mad Haoli. His business card if he has one, reads Brigadier general Frank Howley. And if anybody asks, he might just be the man who saved the city. Today, the Soviet Union cuts off West Berlin. How did the Western allies manage to supply a major city with the largest sustained airlift in history? And how did the Berlin crisis lead to the post war order as we know it? It's June 1945. Six long years of war in Europe are finally over. The Western allies are preparing for the moment they've been fighting for the arrival in the fallen Nazi capital. Sitting behind the wheel of a luxury German convertible, Frank Hawley is feeling celebratory. It's just after dawn on a warm spring morning and Haule is headed to Berlin in style.

[Giles Milton (Guest, Author)]

Hauli prepared this fabulous flotilla of cars.

[John Earl (Host, History This Week)]

Giles Milton is the author of Checkmate. In Berlin you've got these jeeps and

[Giles Milton (Guest, Author)]

gauze and tanks and everything. He was going to lead this triumphant procession. He ordered the soldiers to polish their cars. He got stars and stripes stuck onto all the vehicles and everything.

[John Earl (Host, History This Week)]

Hawley's Horch roadster once belonged to a high ranking Nazi official. It's got huge headlamps, gleaming chrome and a hood like a coffin. The procession isn't exactly a conquering army. It doesn't have to be, because Berlin has already fallen to America's ally, the Soviet Union. Though ideologically opposed, the two countries have become wartime partners. Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin is rebranded as Uncle Joe to the American public. And the allies have collectively decided to divide Berlin into four sectors, each administered by a different country. The largest sectors belong to the Americans and the Soviets. Hawley has been appointed commandant of the American sector. But at the border between western and Soviet controlled eastern Germany, he stopped at a Soviet checkpoint. Something is very wrong.

[Giles Milton (Guest, Author)]

The Soviet soldier at the frontier post just denied him access, said, you're not going into the city. And Frank Howley said, there's an agreement. I'm allowed in and this is my fleet of tanks and cars and we're going in. And the Soviets said, no, you're not.

[John Earl (Host, History This Week)]

Hawley realizes that running Berlin in cooperation with the Soviets is going to be much harder than he expected. Already, just weeks after the Nazi surrender, the buddy buddy wartime alliance is fraying. The chill of the cold war is setting in. By the time the Soviets let Hawley through, there's a sense that he's driving through enemy territory because the Soviets literally surround the city.

[Giles Milton (Guest, Author)]

Berlin sits fairly and squarely inside Soviet occupied East Germany. It was almost like if you imagine a sort of medieval castle surrounded by this sea of red, it could very easily be turned into a siege situation where the city could be blockaded by the Soviets if they fell out in the post war period.

[John Earl (Host, History This Week)]

Hawley's beginning to think it's not if they fall out, it's when. Berlin's geography is so unfavorable that some in the Allied high command figure the city isn't worth the trouble. Leave it to the Soviets. Hawley disagrees and he's determined to, to play hardball.

[Giles Milton (Guest, Author)]

Within a couple of days of getting into the city, he said there's only one way to deal with gangsters and that's to treat them like gangsters.

[John Earl (Host, History This Week)]

They don't call him Howlin Mad for nothing.

[Giles Milton (Guest, Author)]

It's like dropping a kind of wild west cowboy into Berlin. He was a sort of really gutsy commander who believed in getting things done. He didn't believe in red tape. He didn't believe in bureaucracy. He believed that everyone should do what he said.

[John Earl (Host, History This Week)]

The Berlin that Hauli eventually does enter is in total ruins.

[Giles Milton (Guest, Author)]

There was no running water, there was no electricity, there was no gas. There was no civil government at all whatsoever. And yeah, no food. It was a desperate situation.

[John Earl (Host, History This Week)]

Into the rubble walk the four commandants. One American, that's Howley, one British, one French, and one Soviet. These commandants have almost unlimited powers over the Berliners in their sector. They decide who eats and who starves. They can seize property and throw people in jail without trial. Berliners are hoping that the commandants will work together to run and rebuild the city. An early test is around food. The commandants meet and discuss how to divide the city's limited food supplies. Existing rations are as little as 1200 calories a day. Dark bread, watery potato soup. It's barely enough. Starving people wander the streets like zombies. The commandants argue through a haze of cigarette smoke. The chandeliers overhead flicker and dim as Berlin's battered electricity grid strains to keep them lit. So who should get the most food?

[Giles Milton (Guest, Author)]

Well, of course it's the most important. It's the politicians, it's the journalists, it's the influencers. We need to give them the biggest rations so they'll be on our side.

[John Earl (Host, History This Week)]

That's Soviet commander General Alexander Kotikov. He's big with combed back white hair and intense blue eyes. When he's nervous, he massages his fingers one by one. And he wants to use food as a political tool.

[Giles Milton (Guest, Author)]

And frank howley said, well, hold on a minute. No, surely it's got to be old ladies. It's got to be the weak, the sick. He said to his soviet counterpart, you can't kick an old lady when she's down.

[John Earl (Host, History This Week)]

Kotakov's deputy grins.

[Giles Milton (Guest, Author)]

And my dear colonel hawley, that is exactly when you should kick them.

[John Earl (Host, History This Week)]

Now, it's easy to paint the soviets as cartoon villains. In his memoir, hawley calls them gangsters, rats, liars, swindlers, and cutthroats. But it's important to keep in mind that the soviet people suffered unimaginably during the war. A huge swath of their country was destroyed, and an estimated 24 million Soviet citizens were killed. More soviet soldiers died in one battle at stalingrad than the united states lost in the entire war. When your country has been through that, using food as a weapon might seem like an acceptable thing to do, especially if you think it could prevent another war.

[Giles Milton (Guest, Author)]

I think for stalin, he saw capturing eastern europe and as much of central europe as possible as an essential buffer zone to stop any enemy, particularly german, in the future being able to launch another attack on the soviet union.

[John Earl (Host, History This Week)]

Stalin wants to take control of berlin and as much of germany as possible, and he's willing to use coercion and violence to do it. By March 1946, Winston Churchill, Britain's wartime leader, Comes to the same conclusion. As the soviets are not our friends,

[Giles Milton (Guest, Author)]

he comes to missouri, so the home state of president truman, and he delivers a speech that shocks the world, I should say, where he says, from stettin

[Archival Audio / Historical Figures]

in the baltic to trieste in the adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent.

[Giles Milton (Guest, Author)]

And this is churchill's way of really saying to the world that his former buddy in the kremlin, Joseph stalin, has gone from ally to enemy. So that was one. A real shock and a real sort of a starting gun for the cold war, if you like.

[John Earl (Host, History This Week)]

As the iron curtain descends, eastern europe falls under soviet control. Poland, czechoslovakia, hungary, they all become soviet satellite states. And berlin, located deep in soviet controlled eastern germany, Gradually splits in two. There's a soviet half and a western half. The western half is dominated by the united states in cooperation with britain and france.

[Giles Milton (Guest, Author)]

You had two police forces, one for the east of the city, one for the west. Of course, they didn't agree on anything. You began to have two city governments, one in the east of the City and one in the west of the city which didn't see eye to eye.

[John Earl (Host, History This Week)]

German journalist Ruth Andreas Friedrich documents the breakup of Berlin in her diary.

[Giles Milton (Guest, Author)]

She'd lived in Berlin throughout the war and had been working quietly and secretly for the resistance inside the city. And she kept this diary which really charted the horrors of life in the city at the time.

[John Earl (Host, History This Week)]

Andreas Friedrich captures the moment when the city splits for good. It happens over, of all things, money. By mid-1948, inflation is out of control. The old Reichsmark is basically worthless. American Chesterfield cigarettes are the de facto currency. Berliners race to spend their Reichsmarks on whatever they can. For Andreas Friedrich, it's mostly junk. Knives that don't cut, Tin spoons that do. Rock hard toothpaste, crumbling tubes of lipstick. One man spends three years of wages on a few pounds of coffee. Meanwhile, in secret, the Western Allies print a new currency and fly it into Berlin. 250 million crisp bills disguised as military cargo. It's called Operation Bird Dog. They hide it from the Soviets, who they know will try to stop them. Cold War competition is setting in the and the Western Allies want their half of the country to thrive. On June 24, they spring the brand new Deutsche mark on Berlin. And the Soviets are not happy about it.

[Giles Milton (Guest, Author)]

The Soviets break all ties with their former partners in the Western sectors.

[John Earl (Host, History This Week)]

They can play this economic game too.

[Giles Milton (Guest, Author)]

And people like Howling Man Howley are left scratching their heads thinking, what the hell do we do now? We're blockaded. We can't get any food. The Soviets have cut the railway line from West Germany. They've cut the autobahn from West Germany. We're sitting here completely stranded. What do we do?

[John Earl (Host, History This Week)]

It's a blockade now. We're in for it. Andreas Friedrich writes in her diary. Snap, said the mouse finding herself trapped. We poor little mice of Berlin.

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[John Earl (Host, History This Week)]

It's the summer of 1948, and the Soviet Union has begun its blockade of West Berlin. One of the first things they do is cut off electricity. If you've ever lived through a blackout, you know how quickly modern civilization with all its electric underpinnings, can fall apart.

[Giles Milton (Guest, Author)]

The sewage system couldn't work. The water system couldn't work. The pumps that bring the water from the aquafilters couldn't work. And literally, within hours, sewage is pouring into the many lakes and the rivers that run through the western sectors of Berlin.

[John Earl (Host, History This Week)]

West Berliners go into survival mode. They begin hoarding water in bathtubs, in buckets. At night, they grope around in the darkness by candlelight. Fresh foods are replaced by dried potatoes, dried carrots, dried eggs, and dried milk. It makes the old rations, that watery potato soup, start to sound pretty good. But their biggest fear isn't starvation. It's the Russians. Frank Hawley knows that if the Russians invade, the west doesn't stand a chance. Soviet soldiers outnumber Western forces 62 to 1 in the region. Still, Hawley goes on the radio and declares, we are ready for you. Behind the bluster, he's scrambling.

[Giles Milton (Guest, Author)]

They've got about, probably about 20 days supplies to keep people alive on subsistence rations. So they have to think pretty quickly. There's no chance of bringing stuff in by rail because the Soviets have cut the rail link. There's no chance of bringing it in by road. So that leaves the air as the only possibility.

[John Earl (Host, History This Week)]

The good news is that Hawley has planned for this. He knows exactly how much food and supplies he needs to sustain 2.5 million West Berliners every day. It's four and a half thousand tons. But there's a problem.

[Giles Milton (Guest, Author)]

The only planes he's got are Dakota C47s. A Dakota C47 can carry 2 1/2 tons on any given flight.

[John Earl (Host, History This Week)]

By that math, Hawley would need to fly in 1800 planes a day every single day. Which will be hard given that the Americans have less than 100 of these planes in all of western Europe. And even if they had enough planes, West Berlin only has two airports. For this to work, he'd have to land a plane at both of them every 96 seconds. And I forgot to mention the weather. Berlin has notoriously bad flying weather. Picture fog as thick as pea soup.

[Giles Milton (Guest, Author)]

So he realizes that this is just not going to be possible to keep the city supplied by air, it's just simply humanly impossible.

[John Earl (Host, History This Week)]

Back in the Kremlin, Joseph Stalin reaches the same conclusion. There is no way the Americans and British can sustain West Berlin by air alone. He knows from experience, at Stalingrad, when the Soviets completely surrounded the German army, the Germans failed to supply their forces by air, and that was just 200,000 people, not two and a half million like in West Berlin.

[Giles Milton (Guest, Author)]

But one man begs to differ.

[John Earl (Host, History This Week)]

His name is Reginald Waite, a brilliant British Air Force officer and logistics whiz. He stays up all night with a slide roll, running the numbers on weight loads and flight frequencies. And he calculates that resupplying West Berlin by air is technically possible.

[Giles Milton (Guest, Author)]

If you'd had planes flying in at five different levels, if you had it going round the clock with planes landing every 60 seconds or so, you could just about do it.

[John Earl (Host, History This Week)]

Waite's calculations convinced the Western Allies to try. They cobbled together a small scale airlift, enough to bring in about half of what West Berlin needs. But it's clearly not sustainable. Come winter, Berliners will either freeze or starve. The Allies need bigger planes and way more of them. In July 1948, Hawley's boss, General Lucius Clay, flies to Washington to pitch America's military leaders and President Truman on an expanded airlift. At a meeting in the Oval Office, he makes his case.

[Giles Milton (Guest, Author)]

I think we've got to stick it out. We've got to try and do this. We've got to save West Berlin. His argument was, if we lose West Berlin, we're going to lose West Germany as well. And if we lose West Germany, the whole of Western Europe could go.

[John Earl (Host, History This Week)]

During the Cold War, this argument will be known as domino theory and used to justify American intervention worldwide. But the military brass in the room that day are not convinced.

[Giles Milton (Guest, Author)]

They go around the table and they all say, this can't be done. It's impossible. No, we can't do it. We've got to get out. We've got to get out. Truman leaves the meeting. He just as he leaves the meeting, he says to Lucius Clay, before you go back to Berlin, drop in on me later and I just want to have a final chat with you.

[John Earl (Host, History This Week)]

The next morning, Clay arrives at the White House.

[Giles Milton (Guest, Author)]

He says to Truman, I'm in complete despair. You heard the joints of chiefs of staff. They said, it can't be done. Truman turns to Lucius Clay with a big smile and he said, don't worry, I've just overruled all of my joint chiefs of staff. The Berlin airlift is going to continue.

[John Earl (Host, History This Week)]

The most ambitious air supply mission in history is about to take off.

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[John Earl (Host, History This Week)]

Trapped in a blockaded city, West Berliners face a terrible risk. Hunger in the Western sectors. Hoping against all odds that the airlift will somehow succeed or head to the Soviet sector toward promises of fresh meat and vegetables. This is before the Berlin Wall. West Berliners could just catch a U Bahn train and emerge in East Berlin, but trading in your Western ration card for a Soviet one? It's a devil's bargain if you crossed

[Giles Milton (Guest, Author)]

into East Berlin and signed up for the far more generous portions of rations that were available, essentially you were locked into the Soviet system. You were treated as one of them. And it was extremely hard to go back into the western sector.

[John Earl (Host, History This Week)]

The vast majority of West Berliners stay put, following Hawley's voice on the radio. Haolley's a former ad executive and he knows how to sway public opinion. On the air, he declares, the American people will not allow the German people to starve. Here's a clip of him from an American propaganda film. He's wearing a shirt and tie under his uniform and standing in front of a huge map of Berlin, pipe in hand.

[Archival Audio / Historical Figures]

I believe we should bear in mind that the Americans, British and French have exactly the same rights in Berlin as the Soviets have. We came here by international agreement. This is. It should be completely an international city.

[John Earl (Host, History This Week)]

Pauli's bluster is backed up by the very real drone of western cargo planes overhead. Every three minutes, like clockwork, the planes land at Tempelhof Gato and a brand new airport Tegel that the Allies build from the rubble of Berlin. The hum of aircraft engines which spark terror during the war becomes a sound of hope. Our faith doesn't come from our hearts, one Berliner says. It comes through the ears. Soviet commandant Kotakov and his men are listening too, and they work hard to make life miserable for the Western pilots.

[Giles Milton (Guest, Author)]

Some of these airfields in the western sectors were right on the border of the Soviet sector, so the Soviets could install searchlights and literally try and blind pilots as they came into land.

[John Earl (Host, History This Week)]

The Soviets fire incendiary bullets between the planes, causing the sky to explode into fragments of light. Light I couldn't see from here to the windshield, one pilot says. The one thing the Soviets don't do is open fire on the planes themselves. That would be one step too far.

[Giles Milton (Guest, Author)]

Stalin didn't ever dare to try and shoot the planes out of the sky. That would be a declaration of war and Stalin wouldn't risk it.

[John Earl (Host, History This Week)]

Still, the airlift is really dangerous. At least 80 airmen and ground crew die in the operation, many crashing in Berlin's heavy fog. Gradually the airlift grows into a streamlined juggernaut. By the spring, Howley's initial target of four and a half thousand tons of supplies, it's being met every single day. The airlift becomes so successful that the American commander managing the day to day, General William Tonnage Tonner, worries that pilots and crews are resting on their laurels. So one day, while he's getting a massage from a stout German woman in the basement of the Schwarzerbach Hotel, General Tunner has an idea. He decides to throw down a challenge to his men. A 24 hour liftathon in which crews will compete to double their daily average.

[Giles Milton (Guest, Author)]

He wanted to mark Easter Sunday by having the biggest load of supplies ever flown into Berlin. A challenge went out and really everyone just worked around the clock to try and break the record.

[John Earl (Host, History This Week)]

Air crews work feverishly, landing, unloading, taking off. Coal, manhole covers, condoms, dried apricots, cuckoo clocks, tobacco. A plane lands every 63 seconds. The Soviet air controller storms out of the joint control room in protest. Your planes are coming in too fast. He yells. Ever the showman, Commandant Hawley rushes to Tempelhoff airport to deliver a grand speech. But his words are drowned out by the roar of aircraft engines. At noon on Easter Sunday, the very last C54, Skymaster of the Easter parade, touches down. The final tally is painted in sloppy red paint beneath the cockpit window.

[Giles Milton (Guest, Author)]

They did spectacularly. I think it was 12,900 tons.

[John Earl (Host, History This Week)]

12,941 tons, to be exact. 1,398 flights. The coal alone would have filled 600 freight cars. The stunt boosts morale, and more importantly, it breaks the will of the Soviets to keep the blockade going.

[Giles Milton (Guest, Author)]

For Stalin as well, and for the Soviets on the ground, they realized that the Allies, the Western Allies, had won at that point. They'd won with the Berlin airlift.

[John Earl (Host, History This Week)]

Another major factor in Stalin's decision to give up is the Allies punishing counter blockade. It completely stops the flow of machinery, steel and coal from west to the East, a move that cripples industrial production in both East Berlin and East Germany. And so, at one minute past midnight on May 12, 1949, the Soviets finally lift the blockade. In an instant, as the electricity is restored, the lights of Berlin snap to life. A hundred miles to the west, Journalists line up in hired sports cars, practically revving their engines. They're ready to race down the moonlit autobahn, hoping to be the first into the newly liberated city.

[Giles Milton (Guest, Author)]

It's going to be the new scoop of a lifetime, you know. And so you have this fantastic moment. Literally, the barriers go up, you know, the frontier between West Germany and East Germany goes up, and off they go, charging down the autobahn in their cars.

[John Earl (Host, History This Week)]

The city they arrive in is still scarred from the war, still recovering, but today it's celebrating, and it is a

[Giles Milton (Guest, Author)]

moment of jubilation for Berliners. This is the party of a lifetime. Everyone turns out in the streets. People put on their finery, women put on their evening dresses. Men all dress up in dinner jackets and in their bow ties and everything.

[John Earl (Host, History This Week)]

In a sense, this is their real end to World War II. Four years after Nazi Germany surrenders, a West Berlin politician sums up the feeling in four words.

[Giles Milton (Guest, Author)]

The west has won. And I think for Berliners, that was true, because they'd been saved, the city had been saved, and they knew that nothing now could impede or impinge on their lives. In West Berlin, they were going to be safe for as long as the west was there.

[John Earl (Host, History This Week)]

The Western Allies had discussed a security alliance before the Berlin crisis, but the blockade accelerates those plans. It makes the Soviet threat tangible and shows that a united west could win. And so, in April 1949, NATO is born.

[Giles Milton (Guest, Author)]

The signatories to this treaty agree on one key thing and one key clause of the NATO treaty, which is that an attack on one of the signatory countries is considered to be attack on all of them and everyone would go to the defense of that one country.

[John Earl (Host, History This Week)]

America's commitment to defend Western Europe becomes fundamental to the post war order. It's a commitment that today seems uncertain.

[Giles Milton (Guest, Author)]

What happened in Berlin in the post war period remains incredibly important because I feel we're at the tail end of the post war order. We're entering a new period of great uncertainty and I don't think anyone could tell you where the world is going at the moment.

[John Earl (Host, History This Week)]

In the aftermath of World War II, the West faced a similar moment. Winston Churchill's Iron Curtain speech is remembered as a warning about the Soviet Union, but it's also a call to action for a bruised and divided alliance. We face a choice, he says, unity or disunity. If the Western democracies stand together, their influence will be immense. If, on the other hand, they become

[Archival Audio / Historical Figures]

divided or falter in their duty, and if these all important years are allowed to slip away, then indeed catastrophe, catastrophe may overwhelm us all.

[John Earl (Host, History This Week)]

Thanks for listening to History this Week, a Back Pocket Studios production in partnership with the History Channel. To stay updated on all things History this week, sign [e-mail] and if you have any thoughts or questions, send us an email at History this [e-mail] Special thanks to our guest, Giles Milton, author of Checkmate in the Cold War showdown that shaped the modern world. We also used the books Battleground Berlin by Ruth Andreas Friedrich, Berlin Command by Brigadier General Frank Howley, Daring Young Men by Richard Reeves, among other sources. You can find all the books we use to research our episodes at our website, historythisweekpodcast.com this episode was produced by me, John Earl, and sound designed by Ben Dickstein for Back Pocket Studios. Our executive producer is Ben Dickstein from the History Channel. Our executive producers are Eli Lehrer and Liv Fiddler. Don't forget to follow rate and review History this Week wherever you get your podcasts and we'll see you next week.