Did the Berlin Airlift attempt to remove people from West Berlin?

Answer 1

No, the idea behind the Berlin Airlift was to supply West Berlin by air rather than evacuate and abandon it to the Soviets.

The Berlin Air Lift (known in German as die Luftbrücke) took place during the Berlin Blockade (24 June 1948 - 12 May 1949). The Air Lift came about after the Soviet Union blocked off rail and road links to the Allied sectors of Berlin in an attempt to gain control of the whole of the city. The Soviet authorities believed that, given the location of the city, the three western sectors would be abandoned by the western allies.

After the war, Berlin was divided into four sectors and ruled collectively. The Soviet Union wanted to keep Germany economically weak. In order to achieve this it set about over-printing the newly-introduced Reichsmark, thereby devaluing it. To counter this the western Allies set about introducing a new currency called the Deutsche Mark but the Soviets refused to honour the new currency. Despite Soviet efforts the currency quickly became standard, even in the Soviet sector. This new currency, along with the Marshall Plan that backed it, appeared to have the potential to revitalize Germany, even against the wishes of the Soviets. Furthermore, the introduction of the currency into western Berlin threatened to create a bastion of western economic resurgence deep within the Soviet zone. Stalin considered this a provocation and now wanted the West completely out of Berlin.

At the time, Berlin had food supplies for 35 days and coal supplies for 45. The Soviets severed all land and water routes to Berlin as a response to the introduction of the Deutsche Mark, believing that the western allies would find an air bridge too expensive, and with the city facing starvation, would evacuate their troops as they were vastly outnumbered. Military forces in the western sectors of Berlin numbered only 8,973 Americans, 7,606 British and 6,100 French. Soviet military forces in the Soviet sector that surrounded Berlin totaled one and a half million.

Following talks between the US and British, who had already conducted a "little Lift" earlier that year following Soviet restrictions on rail and road movement, the Air Lift began on 24 June 1948.

Over 4,000 tons of supplies per day were required by the Berlin population during the airlift. To achieve this, the United States Air Force, Royal Air Force and other Commonwealth nations flew over 200,000 flights providing 13,000 tons of food daily to Berlin in an operation lasting almost a year. By the spring of 1949, the effort was clearly succeeding, and by April the airlift was delivering more cargo than had previously flowed into the city by rail.

The success of the Airlift was humiliating to the Soviets, who had repeatedly claimed it could never work. When it became clear that it did work, the blockade was lifted in May. Even with the lifting of the blockade, the western Allies continued with the Air Lift, to build up a comfortable 3-month supply in the city, should the Soviets attempt to blockade the city again.

The Berlin Air Lift officially ended on 30 September 1949, after 16 months.

Following the blockade, the Soviets refused to return to the Allied Control Council in Berlin, rendering useless the four-power occupation authority set up at the Potsdam conference.