GERMANY - Europe by Eurail 2015: Touring Europe by Train - page 216

Base City: BERLIN
www.visitberlin.de
E-mail: [e-mail]
City Dialing Code: 30
Although eons apart, the modern city of Berlin and the ancient city of Jericho shared
a common occurrence—their walls “came a tumblin' down.” The Bible (Joshua 6)
is a bit vague concerning the actual date of the occurrence in Jericho, but we do
know the Berlin Wall “fell” on November 9, 1989, 28 years after it was built. Berlin
became a whole city; Germany became one country; Berlin is the capital of the new
Germany; communism is on the wane worldwide; and this city again has the largest
Jewish community in Germany.
For Berlin, World War II ended on the afternoon of May 2, 1945. Of the 245,000
buildings in Berlin before the war, 50,000 had been destroyed or rendered beyond
repair. There was no electricity, no gas, no water. Before the war, Berlin had 4.3 mil-
lion inhabitants; in May 1945, the remaining 2.8 million began the task of clearing
away the debris.
In July of that year, Berlin became a four-power city with a joint Allied administra-
tion composed of Britain, France, Russia, and the United States. This division into
zones turned the former German capital into an island of occupation surrounded
completely by a sea of Soviets. East and West were in complete agreement about
abolishing Nazism, but they had no common or precise answer as to what would
replace it. Moreover, it quickly became evident that the Soviet intention was to gain
complete control of the city.
On June 24, 1948, the Soviets sealed off the West's section of the city and, on
the basis of “technical disorders,” shut off their supply of electricity. They were left
with a meager 36-day food supply. A disaster appeared imminent, but two days later
the largest airlift in history began. From July 1948 to May 1949, the Western Allies
transported, in some 213,000 flights, more than 1.7 million tons of food and other
supplies to the beleaguered city. While operating the airlift, 70 members of the Allied
Air Forces lost their lives. On May 12, 1949, the siege was lifted. Berliners began
demonstrating their political choice by moving en masse to the Western sectors.
By August 1961, faced with mass evacuation of their sector, the Soviets began
erecting the Berlin Wall. In 1989, after 28 years of division, the wall that Winston
Churchill called the “Iron Curtain” was breached in one night. Before it “fell,” more