Berlin In The Balance

Berlin In The Balance PDF Author: Thomas Parrish
Publisher: Da Capo Press, Incorporated
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 424

Get Book Here

Book Description
In June 1948, Soviet authorities in Germany announced a land blockade of the American, British, and French sectors of Berlin. Isolated more than one hundred miles within Soviet-occupied territory, western Berlin was in danger of running out of coal, food, and the courage to stand up to Joseph Stalin.As Berlin in the Balance recounts, this crisis was a turning-point for U.S. policy. Just three years earlier, the Soviet Union had been an ally and Berlin the target of American bombers. In 1946 Winston Churchill had ignited protests by calling for an Anglo-American alliance against the USSR. The Berlin blockade made Churchill's ”iron curtain” through Europe an inescapable reality.Led by Harry S. Truman, the Western Allies refused to back away from Berlin. Instead, they took to the air, packing passenger planes with coal, potatoes, flour, and other necessities. Not even the commanders of the year-old U.S. Air Force believed this fleet could supply western Berlin for long. Its main airport was squeezed among apartment buildings. Autumn would bring blinding fogs. And nobody had ever tried to supply a city of millions by air. Berlin in the Balance tells the full, gripping story of this critical conflict—how it developed and how it played out. Noted historian Thomas Parrish shows us the crisis through the eyes of Truman, Stalin, and other leaders. We hear Berliners cheer the arrival of each ”raisin bomber”; the planes' roar was assurance that the democratic powers had not abandoned them. Through sources made available only after the fall of the USSR, we learn how Soviet leaders planned their strategy to drive out the West, what they feared, and what they hoped to achieve. Berlin in the Balance spotlights a different kind of air force heroism—flying heavy transport planes in weather so bad ”the birds walked,” harassed by Soviet fighters but never firing a shot. Under the decisive leadership of General William H. Tunner, crews took off every three minutes around the clock. Soldiers rushed to maintain the airplanes and runways, master a new radar system, even build a new airport. The operation depended on support from Frankfurt to London to Montana, on the sacrifices of German civilians and the boldness of French saboteurs. Using archives and fresh interviews, Parrish details the full scope and success of ”Operation Vittles.”The Berlin airlift stopped Stalin's expansion in Europe. It helped Truman win his upset election in 1948. And it set the course of East-West conflict for the next forty years. More than sixty U.S. and allied fliers died in this great operation, keeping a besieged city fueled, fed, and free. Berlin in the Balance is a masterful chronicle of this crucial, stirring saga.

Berlin In The Balance

Berlin In The Balance PDF Author: Thomas Parrish
Publisher: Da Capo Press, Incorporated
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 424

Get Book Here

Book Description
In June 1948, Soviet authorities in Germany announced a land blockade of the American, British, and French sectors of Berlin. Isolated more than one hundred miles within Soviet-occupied territory, western Berlin was in danger of running out of coal, food, and the courage to stand up to Joseph Stalin.As Berlin in the Balance recounts, this crisis was a turning-point for U.S. policy. Just three years earlier, the Soviet Union had been an ally and Berlin the target of American bombers. In 1946 Winston Churchill had ignited protests by calling for an Anglo-American alliance against the USSR. The Berlin blockade made Churchill's ”iron curtain” through Europe an inescapable reality.Led by Harry S. Truman, the Western Allies refused to back away from Berlin. Instead, they took to the air, packing passenger planes with coal, potatoes, flour, and other necessities. Not even the commanders of the year-old U.S. Air Force believed this fleet could supply western Berlin for long. Its main airport was squeezed among apartment buildings. Autumn would bring blinding fogs. And nobody had ever tried to supply a city of millions by air. Berlin in the Balance tells the full, gripping story of this critical conflict—how it developed and how it played out. Noted historian Thomas Parrish shows us the crisis through the eyes of Truman, Stalin, and other leaders. We hear Berliners cheer the arrival of each ”raisin bomber”; the planes' roar was assurance that the democratic powers had not abandoned them. Through sources made available only after the fall of the USSR, we learn how Soviet leaders planned their strategy to drive out the West, what they feared, and what they hoped to achieve. Berlin in the Balance spotlights a different kind of air force heroism—flying heavy transport planes in weather so bad ”the birds walked,” harassed by Soviet fighters but never firing a shot. Under the decisive leadership of General William H. Tunner, crews took off every three minutes around the clock. Soldiers rushed to maintain the airplanes and runways, master a new radar system, even build a new airport. The operation depended on support from Frankfurt to London to Montana, on the sacrifices of German civilians and the boldness of French saboteurs. Using archives and fresh interviews, Parrish details the full scope and success of ”Operation Vittles.”The Berlin airlift stopped Stalin's expansion in Europe. It helped Truman win his upset election in 1948. And it set the course of East-West conflict for the next forty years. More than sixty U.S. and allied fliers died in this great operation, keeping a besieged city fueled, fed, and free. Berlin in the Balance is a masterful chronicle of this crucial, stirring saga.

The Last Battle

The Last Battle PDF Author: Cornelius Ryan
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439127018
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 749

Get Book Here

Book Description
The classic account of the final offensive against Hitler’s Third Reich. The Battle for Berlin was the culminating struggle of World War II in the European theater, the last offensive against Hitler’s Third Reich, which devastated one of Europe’s historic capitals and marked the final defeat of Nazi Germany. It was also one of the war’s bloodiest and most pivotal battles, whose outcome would shape international politics for decades to come. The Last Battle is Cornelius Ryan’s compelling account of this final battle, a story of brutal extremes, of stunning military triumph alongside the stark conditions that the civilians of Berlin experienced in the face of the Allied assault. As always, Ryan delves beneath the military and political forces that were dictating events to explore the more immediate imperatives of survival, where, as the author describes it, “to eat had become more important than to love, to burrow more dignified than to fight, to exist more militarily correct than to win.” The Last Battle is the story of ordinary people, both soldiers and civilians, caught up in the despair, frustration, and terror of defeat. It is history at its best, a masterful illumination of the effects of war on the lives of individuals, and one of the enduring works on World War II.

A Woman in Berlin

A Woman in Berlin PDF Author:
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 0312426119
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 289

Get Book Here

Book Description
For eight weeks in 1945, as Berlin fell to the Russian army, a young woman kept a daily record of life in her apartment building and among its residents. She tells of the shameful indignities to which women in a conquered city are always subject.

To Save a City

To Save a City PDF Author: Roger G. Miller
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
ISBN: 9781603440905
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 276

Get Book Here

Book Description
Following World War II, the Soviet Union drew an Iron Curtain across Europe, crowning its efforts with a blockade of West Berlin in a desperate effort to prevent the creation of an independent, democratic West Germany. The United States and Great Britain, aided by France, responded with a daring air logistical operation that in fifteen months delivered almost three million tons of coal, food, and other necessities to the people of Berlin. Now, drawing on rare U.S. Air Force files, recently declassified documents from the National Archives, records released since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the memories of airlift veterans themselves, Roger G. Miller provides an original study of the Berlin Airlift. The Berlin Airlift was an enterprise of epic proportions that demonstrated the power of air logistics as a political instrument. What began as a hastily organized operation by a small number of warweary cargo airplanes evolved into an intricate bridge of aircraft that flowed in and out of Berlin through narrow air corridors. Hour after hour, day after day, week after week, a stream of airplanes delivered everything from food and medicine to coal and candy in defiance of breakdowns, inclement weather, and Soviet hostility. And beyond the airlift itself, a complex system of transportation, maintenance, and supply stretching around the world sustained operations. Historians, veterans, and general readers will welcome this history of the first Western victory of the Cold War. Maps, diagrams, and more than forty photographs illustrate the mechanical inner workings and the human faces that made that triumph possible.

Berlin 1961

Berlin 1961 PDF Author: Frederick Kempe
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101515023
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 826

Get Book Here

Book Description
In June 1961, Nikita Khrushchev called Berlin "the most dangerous place on earth." He knew what he was talking about. Much has been written about the Cuban Missile Crisis a year later, but the Berlin Crisis of 1961 was more decisive in shaping the Cold War-and more perilous. It was in that hot summer that the Berlin Wall was constructed, which would divide the world for another twenty-eight years. Then two months later, and for the first time in history, American and Soviet fighting men and tanks stood arrayed against each other, only yards apart. One mistake, one nervous soldier, one overzealous commander-and the tripwire would be sprung for a war that could go nuclear in a heartbeat. On one side was a young, untested U.S. president still reeling from the Bay of Pigs disaster and a humiliating summit meeting that left him grasping for ways to respond. It would add up to be one of the worst first-year foreign policy performances of any modern president. On the other side, a Soviet premier hemmed in by the Chinese, East Germans, and hardliners in his own government. With an all-important Party Congress approaching, he knew Berlin meant the difference not only for the Kremlin's hold on its empire-but for his own hold on the Kremlin. Neither man really understood the other, both tried cynically to manipulate events. And so, week by week, they crept closer to the brink. Based on a wealth of new documents and interviews, filled with fresh-sometimes startling-insights, written with immediacy and drama, Berlin 1961 is an extraordinary look at key events of the twentieth century, with powerful applications to these early years of the twenty-first. Includes photographs

Isaiah Berlin

Isaiah Berlin PDF Author: Michael Ignatieff
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 9780805063004
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 388

Get Book Here

Book Description
Now in paperback, the landmark biography of the preeminent liberal thinker of our time, from celebrated social critic Michael Ignatieff. of photos.

New Berlin Illustrated (Selected Articles: Balance of Power; How Strong are We).

New Berlin Illustrated (Selected Articles: Balance of Power; How Strong are We). PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 30

Get Book Here

Book Description
Contents: Balance of power; How strong are we.

Civilization

Civilization PDF Author: Niall Ferguson
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101548029
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 432

Get Book Here

Book Description
From the bestselling author of The Ascent of Money and The Square and the Tower “A dazzling history of Western ideas.” —The Economist “Mr. Ferguson tells his story with characteristic verve and an eye for the felicitous phrase.” —Wall Street Journal “[W]ritten with vitality and verve . . . a tour de force.” —Boston Globe Western civilization’s rise to global dominance is the single most important historical phenomenon of the past five centuries. How did the West overtake its Eastern rivals? And has the zenith of Western power now passed? Acclaimed historian Niall Ferguson argues that beginning in the fifteenth century, the West developed six powerful new concepts, or “killer applications”—competition, science, the rule of law, modern medicine, consumerism, and the work ethic—that the Rest lacked, allowing it to surge past all other competitors. Yet now, Ferguson shows how the Rest have downloaded the killer apps the West once monopolized, while the West has literally lost faith in itself. Chronicling the rise and fall of empires alongside clashes (and fusions) of civilizations, Civilization: The West and the Rest recasts world history with force and wit. Boldly argued and teeming with memorable characters, this is Ferguson at his very best.

Bowie in Berlin

Bowie in Berlin PDF Author: Thomas Jerome Seabrook
Publisher: Jawbone Press
ISBN: 1906002088
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 277

Get Book Here

Book Description
This is a biographical and historical account of the recording of David Bowie's albums 'Low', ''Heroes'' and 'Lodger'. Set against the backdrop of post-war Berlin it features a cast of characters including Iggy Pop, Kraftwerk and Robert Fripp. It also looks at the influence Bowie's 'Berlin Trilogy' has exerted on other musicians.

Berlin Diary

Berlin Diary PDF Author: William L. Shirer
Publisher: Rosetta Books
ISBN: 0795316984
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 626

Get Book Here

Book Description
The author of the international bestseller The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich offers a personal account of life in Nazi Germany at the start of WWII. By the late 1930s, Adolf Hitler, Führer of the Nazi Party, had consolidated power in Germany and was leading the world into war. A young foreign correspondent was on hand to bear witness. More than two decades prior to the publication of his acclaimed history, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, William L. Shirer was a journalist stationed in Berlin. During his years in the Nazi capital, he kept a daily personal diary, scrupulously recording everything he heard and saw before being forced to flee the country in 1940. Berlin Diary is Shirer’s first-hand account of the momentous events that shook the world in the mid-twentieth century, from the annexation of Austria and Czechoslovakia to the fall of Poland and France. A remarkable personal memoir of an extraordinary time, it chronicles the author’s thoughts and experiences while living in the shadow of the Nazi beast. Shirer recalls the surreal spectacles of the Nuremberg rallies, the terror of the late-night bombing raids, and his encounters with members of the German high command while he was risking his life to report to the world on the atrocities of a genocidal regime. At once powerful, engrossing, and edifying, William L. Shirer’s Berlin Diary is an essential historical record that illuminates one of the darkest periods in human civilization.