After World War II, the Allies decided to start rebuilding Europe. However, they realized that they had two very different ideas on how to rebuild Europe. The two different ideas were most obviously employed by the U.S.A and the U.S.S.R. The U.S.A approved of a capitalist goal, and gave the lands back to each of it’s native countries, while the U.S.S.R preferred communism, and absorbed the lands into itself.
When Germany was defeated, it was decided that the country would be divided in half, the west side going to the western countries like America, France, and England, while the Eastern half went to Russia. The capital of Germany itself would be divided into quarters, each to be given to one of the countries mentioned, despite the city (Berlin) being in Eastern Germany, and therefore under the control of Russia. This only lasted a few years, and in 1948 Britain, France, and the U.S.A gave their chunks of Germany back to the Germans, who formed a new state called West Germany. Russia however, did not want to relinquish their new German land, and kept it. The same happened in Berlin, so the west half was ruled by Germany and the east half was ruled by Russia.
Later that year Russia would set up the Berlin Blockade in an attempt to completely capture Berlin, by stationing tanks and military personnel at all the entrances to the city, particularly the ones that faced towards Western Germany. Supposedly this was because the Allies had instituted a new currency in West Germany, the Deutschemark, and the U.S.S.R did not like the fact that there was now a competing currency in one half of a city it had control over. When the blockade was started, they threatened to starve west Berlin if the Deutschemark was not removed, but the Allies instead flew planes over Berlin and dropped supplies down to them. This allowed the people to live, and even do well, as the airdrops were even more effective than the allies thought they would be. The Russians, assuming this wouldn’t work, tried minimally to stop the allies, which would end up being a mistake. After 15 months of this blockade, the Russians finally stopped, and allowed west Germany to have access to Berlin once again.
While no obvious consequences came from this, it raised tensions between Russia and the rest of Europe (and America) considerably, helping accentuate the cold war, a fifty year long non-violent war between America and Russia.
School Essays 