Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
to hear the results of the first postwar election - and was replaced by the newly elected
Labour prime minister, Clement Attlee, who could do little but watch as Truman and
Stalin settled the fate of postwar Europe and Berlin.
Starvation and unrest
For Berliners, things stayed miserable. German agriculture and industry had virtually
collapsed, threatening acute
shortages of food and fuel
just as winter approached. Mass
graves were dug and co
ns stockpiled for the expected wave of deaths, and thousands
of children were evacuated to the British occupation zone in the west, where conditions
were less severe. To everyone's surprise the winter turned out to be uncommonly mild.
Christmas 1945 was celebrated after a fashion, and mothers took their children to the
first postwar
Weihnachtsmarkt
(Christmas fair) in the Lustgarten.
Unfortunately the respite was only temporary, for despite the good weather, food
supplies remained overstretched. In March rations were reduced drastically, and the
weakened civilian population fell prey to typhus, TB and other
hunger-related
diseases
; the lucky ones merely suffered enteric or skin diseases. he Allies did what
they could, sending government and private relief, but even by the spring of 1947
rations remained at malnutrition levels.
Crime and prostitution
soared. In Berlin alone,
two thousand people were arrested every month, many from the juvenile gangs that
roamed the ruins murdering, robbing and raping. Trains were attacked at the Berlin
stations, and in the countryside bandits ambushed supply convoys heading for the city.
he winter of 1946-47 was one of the coldest since records began. Wolves appeared in
Berlin and people froze to death aboard trains. here were rumours of cannibalism and
Berlin hospitals treated 55,000 people for frostbite.
Allied tensions
Meanwhile,
political developments
that were to have a lasting impact on Berlin were
occurring. In March 1946, parts of the SPD were forced into a shotgun merger with the
KPD, to form the
SED
(Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands - “Socialist Unity Party
of Germany”), or future
communist party
of East Germany, underlining the political
division of the city as the wartime alliance between the western powers (France had also
been allotted an occupation zone) and the Soviet Union fell apart, ushering in a new era of
conflict that would all too often focus on Berlin. he Allied Control Council met for the
last time on March 20, when Marshal Sokolovsky, the Soviet military governor, protested
British and American attempts to introduce economic reform in their zones.
Tension mounted over the next few months as the Allies went ahead with economic
reform, while the Russians demanded the right to board Berlin-bound Allied trains,
and on June 16 walked out of the four-power
Kommandantura
that had ultimate
control over Berlin. hings came to a head with the
introduction of the D-Mark
in the
western zone (June 23, 1948). On that day, the Soviets demanded from Berlin's mayor
that he accept their Ostmark as currency for the whole city. But the city's parliament
voted overwhelmingly against it. Everyone knew that this was asking for trouble, and
trouble wasn't long in coming. On the night of June 23-24, power stations in the
Soviet zone cut off electricity supplies to the western half of Berlin, and road and rail
links between the western part of Germany and Berlin were severed. his was the
beginning of the
Berlin blockade
, the USSR's first attempt to force the western Allies
June 1953
1961
An uprising of industrial workers against the
Communist regime in the East is brutally put
down; at least 200 people die.
Germany signs an agreement that grants Turks
temporary work visas; many start to settle in
Berlin.
