The building of walls. The erection of barbed
wire and barriers. These can never, for long,
divide peoples. Never create a permanent prison
for the human spirit. For the strength of
a wall is measured only by the fear of those
who built it.
This was a city 30 years ago; a city, then
one of the greatest in the world, in size
and stature ranking with London,
Paris, Rome, New York.
Alive, and a unity, this was Berlin
in the 1930s. No barriers at the Brandenburg Tor; no guards at the Potsdamer Platz.
But this was Berlin before Hitler came to
power.
1945, and this was Berlin: a city in name
only; a geographical location
Amid the rubble of destruction, the flags of the victors,
men who'd taken up arms in self-defence, with
a common aim to destroy that which menaced
them all. Around them, a defeated nation,
for their armies had met in the very middle
of Germany.
Until such time as Germany could reshape her
own destiny, she would be divided into separate
zones of occupation, each controlled by an
Allied power: American, British, French, Russian.
Economically, she would be treated as a whole.
This the victors had agreed when they had
met to decide the future of Germany. Even
then, some had reservations about mutual trust.
But, a World War just over, they had to trust
one another, or else begin another war.
For Berlin, it was to be each power with its sector,
but a city open to all the powers until Berlin
could again assume her role as the capital
of a new German state.
Berlin lay 100 miles deep in the Soviet occupation
zone, but was not part of it. Access to the
city for the other powers was agreed over
certain roads, railways and three air corridors.
Makeshift, perhaps, but then it was never
meant to be permanent.
In Berlin, they set up the headquarters of
an Allied Kommandatura, where, day by day,
officers of the four occupying powers would
administer Berlin by cooperation, by joint
agreement as to what was to be done, and how.
And, frankly, what was to be done meant starting
again from scratch.
Yet, amid the ruins and the deprivation slowly
a start was made. A start not only upon the
physical reconstruction, but also the political
rebirth of the city. It would appear that
the Soviets had agreed to joint occupation
only because they believed that in the first
free elections Berlin would vote Communist.
So it was with confidence that they watched the democratic processes of free ballot.
But although Communist support in Berlin was far
from negligible, for them the results came
as a shock. Instead of a landslide for the
extreme left, there came instead a victory
for the Social Democrats and other non-Communists.
But when, in June 1947, the town assembly
elected Ernst Reuter for mayor, this proved
to be a victory without fruit. For, in the
Allied Kommandatura, the frustrated Soviets
vetoed his election. It was a step ominous
and foreboding.
Until that moment, the city had been divided
in name only. But, from then on, the Russians
made the divisions more clear cut. They set
up a Communist system in their own sector
and established decided barriers between it
and those of their recent allies.
These were the years in which the expression ‘Iron Curtain' became a reality.
Along a line
from the Baltic to the Balkans, a clampdown.
In place of the comradeship of victory: barbed
wire, suspicion and distrust; years of disillusionment.
Meanwhile, over the frontier paths there flowed
a steady stream of refugees East to West. Soon
it became clear that most were moving Westwards
because they could not tolerate life in the East.
Again, an ominous sign.
In the eastern sector of Berlin, Communist
power was fully established. Party bosses,
party youth, party rallies, permeated with
all the hysteria previously associated with
the Nazis.
By organising special police and
paramilitary units, the Soviets were illegally
rearming East Germany.
In the world councils of the United Nations,
the war-weary were endeavouring to establish
a lasting peace. But these were the days of
Stalinist expansion. And so, by repeated refusals
to cooperate, except on their own terms, the
Soviet delegates sabotaged any progress towards
real stability.
On the 23rd of June 1948, West Berlin introduced
monetary reform, without which economic recovery
would have been impossible. New notes for
old. The currency was revalued. For the Russians,
their disagreement gave them the excuse for
action. West Berlin they could not touch,
but they could and did interfere with the
lifelines on which West Berlin depended. The
roads, the railways, the canals; these were
West Berlin’s vital arteries. So, stop the
trains.
Close the roads.
Bar the canals,
and cut the power.
West Berlin was 100 miles deep in the Soviet
zone of Germany. This was to be the way to
force the Western Allies to quit Berlin.
Thus 2 million people were isolated,
to be faced with the prospect of hunger, cold, unemployment and misery.
No way in; no way out.
The only element still open: the air above
It started as a trickle, as a temporary measure.
Plane after plane,
destination: the airfields of West Berlin.
The vital necessities, food,
raw materials, even coal brought in by air,
until the United States, Great Britain and
France were embarked upon the biggest air
transport operation history has ever seen.
Round the clock, plane after plane.
Even flying boats to set down on West Berlin’s lakes.
In the beliegered city, power shortage enforced skeleton transport services.
Food shortage
necessitated careful distribution and queues.
But rather short measure than surrender.
As each night fell, the roar of aero engines continued.
Dependent for the most part on
power from the eastern sector, West Berlin
was plunged each night into a blackout. But
while West Berliners felt their way through
the gloom, still their air lift continued
through the hours of darkness. When West Berliners
rose each dawn, it was again to the roar of
planes, but because of those planes there
was bread in the shops, and this was to be
the pattern for many a hard month ahead.
It was to be expected that the Soviets would
not take the airlift without some reaction.
Across the eastern boundary, the Communists
staged demonstrations against what they called,
“This Western interference with Berlin affairs.”
These, in turn, led to riots, but forced the
non-Communist councillors to abandon the Berlin
Town Hall, which lay in the eastern sector.
But in the western sectors, unity against
the blockade was overwhelming, symbolised
by the leadership of Ernst Reuter.
Any joint administration of Berlin as a whole
had already ceased to exist, a fact emphasised
by the abandonment by the Russians of the
Allied Kommandatura.
City government for greater Berlin was impossible,
since the western councillors
had been driven from the East, so Reuter and
the non-Communists moved into new quarters
in the West, and at their meetings empty chairs
stood witness to the fact that the East Berliners
were denied the right to choose their representatives freely.
For the West, the Berlin Blockade came as
the last straw. Soviet behaviour had demonstrated
that no one was safe. After much negotiation,
12 nations came together to form an alliance
for collective defence. Its name:
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
Or, as it came to be known:NATO.
Together in Washington in April 1949, they
put the seal on their union. They were resolved,
as they put it, to unite their efforts for
collective defence and the preservation of
peace and security. It was to be the end of
leaning over backwards in the face of consistent
Soviet expansion.
Meanwhile, for West Berlin it had been a tough winter.
On the airfields, fog, mist and freezing
cold. Yet, in spite of the conditions, the
airlift had carried on. In spite of the conditions,
and the losses.
By means of the airlift, West Berlin had been kept alive,
but only at a cost. All the sufferings of war, in the midst
of peace.
But there could be no turning back now.
If the Russians thought that the city could not be supplied indefinitely by air,
they were going to be proved very wrong.
For the airlift, all possible reinforcement.
More planes,
improved runways,
greater facilities,
and so what had begun as makeshift became routine.
Food and supplies, month in, month out.
Soon it became clear that the West had not
only won a victory against logistics, but
also a moral victory, which drew the admiration
of the world. Thanks to the crews of the airlift. Victory through determination to defend the right.
Meanwhile, a series of signatures on a piece
of paper had slowly but surely turned into
practical steps towards military cooperation
and collective rearmament within NATO. Indeed,
the growth of unity in the West was such that
the Russians, though still breathing threats,
realised that their pressure was inducing
the very opposite of that disunity on which
they counted.
And so, for the free world, an historic night.
The night, when on the autobahn leading to
West Berlin the barriers were pushed aside
for the first time in nine months. As the
trucks and cars streamed forward, so the railway
destination boards read once again: ‘This
train for Berlin’.
But if the Russians believed that the lifting
of the blockade would cause the West to lower
its guard, they were mistaken. NATO had been
born, and until the East displayed a vastly
different spirit, NATO was to stay.
No stopping now.
As yet, forces were still weak, but as
soon as possible they must be built up;
a strong defensive shield.
And what now Berlin?
Mayor Reuter and the Berliners, having won with Western help,
the battle of the Blockade, now began the
process of placing West Berlin onto a basis
of economic prosperity. A city still an island,
linked with the world only by the arteries,
whose continued existence had been so hardly won.
won. But now, through them, West Berlin was
to draw strength, to make itself no longer
just a fragment of a city, but a unity within
itself.
Yet, still across Berlin as a whole, there
was much traffic over the borders. On the
overhead and underground railways, Berliners
came and went. True, the sector boundaries
still loomed up, but they did not prevent
passage across the city; though it was passage
under difficulties. At the eastern sector
border the trams, though continuing on, nonetheless
were forced to change both drivers and conductors.
While at this border too, anyone passing
had first to change his money, for the East did
not accept Western Marks, and vice versa.
But, at the Potsdamer Platz, on the very border
itself, watched by the police on both sides,
still a steady movement both ways. Why not,
when all were Berliners?
But there were many passing but one way: a
steady stream of refugees to the west; a steady
stream, unceasing since the end of World War
Two, but growing day by day as life became
more intolerable under a Communist regime.
The island of West Berlin had become the staging
point for the free road to the West. To all
but the most prejudiced, it was obvious that
all was far from perfect beyond the Potsdamer
Platz.
And, on the 17th of June 1953 came proof.
On that day, a protest march of East Berlin workers
turned into a general rebellion against
the Communist regime. For some hours, that
regime was helpless against the disorder.
Until, in desperation,
they called in the Red Army.
And so, because stones and courage against tanks are not enough, the revolt died.
After the June uprising, the movement of refugees
could no longer be termed ‘a stream’;
it had become a flood.
Throughout the western sectors of Berlin,
the humming factories were evidence of their
rising prosperity. Soon, indeed, West Berlin
was to become again the most powerful production
centre in all Germany.
But with the confidence, there had been sorrow.
Before the bier of Mayor Reuter, crowds passed
to pay homage to the man who had helped save
their city. Ernst Reuter was dead, but his
work was already showing great results.
Meanwhile, in these years of uneasy truce
the Soviet Union had systematically turned
her zone into a purely Communist regime, and
blocked every attempt to treat Germany as
a whole. The three Western powers had no alternative
but to move forward with the economic unification
of their zones. This was followed by political
unification. Independence was not long in
coming, and there was born a new sovereign
state: the Federal Republic of Germany.
The status of Berlin, however, was not changed;
it remained the responsibility of the four
occupying powers, and the garrisons stayed.
The guarantee of security for Western Germany
depended on the overall strength of the Atlantic Alliance. Chancellor Adenauer and the federal
parliament agreed that the new republic should
join NATO, so bringing the Organisation's
strength up to 15 nations. 
And by now, strength was no misnomer.
Although the crisis was far from over,
NATO’s power was such as to make
any aggressor think carefully.
Now the West could negotiate from a position of strength and confidence.
At the Geneva summit, the Soviets paid lip
service to the principle of German reunification,
but blocked any practical progress. In those
negotiations, all the trying could not break
down the Iron Curtain.
But, for West Berlin, it would still go ahead.
To the traveller flying in, the city displayed
a brave new face.
First, on arrival, he would see 
the memorial to the airlift,
a sign that West Berlin remembers 
those who won its survival.
After that, a new skyline risen from the rubble.
If West Berliners had, as the Communists alleged,
little hope for the future, it was not apparent
in the face of their steadily changing city.
In West Berlin, a new look. 
In East Berlin…
From beyond the the Potsdamer Platz,
still thousands arriving;
still a flood to airlift off the island
to find new homes in the West
In the face of continued Soviet obstruction,
the 15 NATO nations sought to clear the Soviets’
minds as to how the alliance stood on the
thorny question of Berlin. Already, in 1954,
the 3 powers responsible for Berlin
had made it clear beyond doubt that any attack
against Berlin from any quarter would be treated
as an attack on their forces, and on themselves.
The other members of NATO immediately associated
themselves with this declaration.
All proposals made by the Soviets towards
solving the question of the reunification
of Germany implied their refusal to acknowledge
the principle of self-determination by means
of free elections, to which the West was and
is firmly committed. Until such time as the
Soviets change their minds, the NATO nations
will stand firm in face of all Soviet pressure,
and honour their pledge to maintain the freedom
of West Berlin and its people; a pledge often
repeated at NATO ministerial meetings.
So, until there was a change of front on the
part of the East, it would seem that Germany
and Berlin would remain divided. But evidence
that the status quo did not suit everybody
in the East was the continuing flood of refugees
passing through to West Berlin.
In November 1958, Soviet pressure comes on
again. Mr Khrushchev begins to create his
own crisis by threatening to sign a separate
peace treaty with the East Germans.
Paris, May 1960, Mr Khrushchev uses the U2
incident to break up the summit conference,
which was meant to bring the Berlin and German
questions nearer to a solution. He drops his
threat to take immediate action, but does
not change his tune. Berlin, he alleges, is
the capital of a sovereign East Germany,
and the Allies must be made to quit Berlin.
And in rearmed Communist Germany,
the force is there, men and armour.
June the 4th 1961, Khrushchev to President
Kennedy, Khrushchev repeats his threat to
sign a separate peace treaty with East Germany,
which he claims, wrongly, will end all Western
rights in Berlin. And so on.
Move after move, until …
On the 13th of August 1961, a wall of East
German police stands at the Brandenburg Gate.
All communication between the eastern sector,
and those of the west,
has been cut as though by a knife.
Before it, West Berliners stand stunned.
But soon they give voice to their indignation.
[shouting in German]
But to all objections, all approaches, the only answer:
jets of water from
eastern armoured trucks.
Soviet attacks on the rights of the Western.
powers in Berlin showed that the wall was
meant to be a step towards control of the
whole city; towards forcing out the Western
powers. As the last escape routes were cut,
one after the other, final scrambles, so as
not to be left behind in the prison.
And this was an exodus not 
confined merely to the civilians.
Even among the East German police guarding
and maintaining the new barrier,
there were some who decided
that they too had reached
the end of their tether.
And there was nothing
left for it, but to cut and run.
[speech in German]
At protest meetings held
in the western sectors, the mayor and people
of West Berlin called for help and support
from the three Western powers.
And they did not call in vain.
Along the autobahn leading
to the city came reinforcements from the three
Western garrisons stationed in Berlin. In
all, these garrisons number only 12,000 men;
a small force compared with the massive weight
of the 20 Soviet divisions which surround
the city; a force so small that it gives the
lie to Soviet charges that Berlin is an aggressive
Western base.
But, these reinforcements were the symbols
of Western determination. They demonstrated
to the Soviet Union that any aggression threatening
the life of West Berlin could bring into play
all the defensive power of the West.
A firm stand: so far and no further.
Brick by brick, until no contact but a friendly wave.
So that when Chancellor Adenauer
visited the crisis area, he was met not only
by radio truck insults, but literally by a
wall. But a wall can never create a permanent
prison for the human spirit. Its strength
is measured only by the fears of those who
build it. By night, by tunnels, somehow a
few still manage to make their escape.
Though others failed, and fell riddled
with East German bullets.
For the East, the wall is evidence of how
they would like to treat the whole of Berlin;
of their kind of settlement of the Berlin
problem.
So that this, today, is the Potsdamer Platz,
where freedom, like the trams, comes
to the end of the line.
But for the West, such settlements are unacceptable.
Ever since the Atlantic Alliance was created,
it has striven to resolve all problems by
peaceful negotiation, including the reunification
of Germany, and Berlin in freedom. But it
is negotiation from the strength necessary
to withstand the threat of force, and in NATO’s
determination to resist aggression lies the
hope for peace and freedom of millions all
over the world.
