06/24/2026
THE BERLIN BLOCKADE and AIRLIFT BEGIN
On 24 June 1948, the Russians officially blockaded all rail, road, and waterway traffic into West Berlin. It was Stalin’s intention to strangle the city into submission. What Stalin had failed to anticipate was US President Harry Truman’s stubborn “the-buck-stops-here” determination to thwart any communist takeover. Nor were the West Berliners prepared to give in to the Soviets.
PHOTO: The Berlin Airlift memorial at the former US Rhein-Main Air Base in Frankfurt. Since 2008 the memorial has been accessible via a bike path from Terminal 2 at Frankfurt Airport (FRA) or from Zeppelinheim. A C-47 (DC-3) "Berlin Train" airplane is seen next to the monument. Today this is one of three similar monuments at each of the main Airlift airports. Credit: Wolfgang Pehlemann (USAF), CC-BY-SA-3.0-DE via Wikimedia
Two days after Stalin’s blockade began, Allied aircraft began flying supplies into the city. On 26 June 1948 the Berlin Airlift – "die Luftbrücke" (air bridge) in German – began operation. Everything the West Berliners needed to survive — from groceries to gasoline – would come to them only by air until the end of September 1949. The American, British, and French sectors in Berlin were isolated by the Soviets. The airlift would last for over 15 months and cost more than $224 million.
The Allies, including the Soviets, had signed an agreement in November 1945 to establish three 20-mile wide air corridors providing free access to Berlin. (Unfortunately they had seen no need to also agree on land and water routes.) Most of the cargo coming into West Berlin landed at Tempelhof Airport in the American sector. Gatow airport in the British sector was the only other West Berlin airport at the time. (The Tegel airport did not open until years later.)
Flights into West Berlin arrived via two corridors, a southern one from the US Rhein-Main Air Base in Frankfurt, and a northern one from the British RAF bases at Fuhlsbüttel and Finkenwerder near Hamburg. To avoid collisions, aircraft returning from Berlin used a third central corridor to fly back via Celle. Oberpfaffenhofen Airfield in Bavaria served as a maintenance and storage facility for planes serving in the Airlift.
Years after the airlift, commemorative monuments were erected at the three main Berlin Airlift airports. All were based on a design by Eduard Ludwig (1906–1960). The first, the memorial in front of Tempelhof Airport in Berlin, originally intended to be the only one, was dedicated in July 1951. Only decades later was the second memorial, at Rhein-Main Air Base in Frankfurt, dedicated in June 1985. A third memorial, scaled a bit smaller than the other two, at the former British RAF Station Celle was not dedicated until June 1988, 40 years after the Airlift began! All three memorials feature a three-ribbed, slightly arched concrete structure symbolizing the three air corridors used for "Operation Vittles", the American nickname for the undertaking. (See photo.) At the base of each memorial are the names and ranks of the pilots and crew who died while flying for the Airlift.
