Berlin Crises

The Berlin Crises involved mounting tension between the Soviet Union and the Western Allies over West Berlin. Since the 1948–49 blockade, West Berlin had become a symbol of U.S. guarantees for Western European security and a platform for Western intelligence operations. In November 1958, Soviet premier Nikita S. Khrushchev launched a campaign to terminate the Allied presence in West Berlin and to prompt the West to recognize the German Democratic Republic (GDR). He hoped to reduce the GDR's isolated diplomatic position; some analysts argue that Moscow also feared U.S. plans for nuclear sharing with West Germany.

Without Western concessions, Moscow declared it would turn over its responsibilities in East Berlin to the GDR and allow East German officials to regulate civilian and Allied military traffic between West Berlin and West Germany. Khrushchev did not want to risk nuclear war; Presidents Eisenhower (1959) and Kennedy (1961–62) were willing to negotiate, but neither would grant the concessions he sought.

In the event of a military confrontation, Eisenhower and the Allies authorized U.S. Commander‐in‐Chief Europe (CINCEUR) Gen. Lauris Norstad to create a secret planning group—code‐named “Live Oak”—to develop contingency plans. Yet Eisenhower ruled out a conventional U.S.‐Soviet war over in Germany; he considered U.S. capabilities for massive nuclear strikes as sufficient both for deterring a serious crisis and for war‐fighting. When the Kennedy administration came to power, however, its emphasis on nonnuclear and limited nuclear options prompted Pentagon and Live Oak planners to develop plans for conventional warfare in Central Europe. In addition, the Live Oak group was attached to NATO, with West German membership.

The Berlin crisis became most intense after the Kennedy–Khrushchev summit at Vienna in June 1961. Khrushchev set a six‐month deadline for a settlement. Kennedy authorized a U.S.‐NATO conventional buildup, heightened nuclear alert, and accelerated contingency planning. To staunch a tremendous outflow of East German refugees, Khrushchev in mid‐August supported GDR leader Walter Ulbricht's efforts to close the East‐West Berlin sector borders, first with barbed wire, then with a concrete wall. The Western Allies condemned this new border closing.

The only military confrontation of the second Berlin crisis, the “Checkpoint Charlie” incident, occurred in late October 1961 when tank deployments on both sides of the Wall followed U.S. challenges of GDR restrictions on official travel to East Berlin. However, both sides carefully regulated this brief confrontation. Meanwhile, pressured by Britain and neutral powers, Kennedy had initiated diplomatic contacts in late September and Khrushchev withdrew his deadline. Negotiations stalemated during 1962 and U.S. officials worried about major Soviet moves, but a crisis occurred over Cuba, not Berlin. The shock of the missile crisis, however, may have lowered tensions over Berlin; also easing the situation, some scholars argue, was Bonn's signature on the Limited Test Ban Treaty (1963), which reduced Moscow's concerns about a nuclear Germany. Nevertheless, divided Berlin remained a Cold War flash point and the Live Oak group remained in existence in the event that an access crisis occurred. Live Oak disbanded, however, in 1990, when Germany reunified and Berlin's occupation ended.

[See also Berlin Airlift; Cold War: External Course; Germany, U.S. Military Involvement in.]

Bibliography

• Jack Schick, The Berlin Crisis, 1958–1962, 1971.
• Marc Trachtenberg, A Constructed Peace: The Making of the European Settlement, 1945–1963, 1999.
• U.S. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958–1960, ed. David Baehler and Charles S. Sampson, 1993.
• U.S. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, Vols. 14 and 15, ed. Charles S. Sampson, 1994.
• Anatoly Dobrynin, In Confidence: Moscow's Ambassador to America's Six Cold War Presidents, 1995.
• William Burr, Avoiding the Slippery Slope: Eisenhower and the Berlin Crisis, November 1958–January 1959, Diplomatic History 18 (Spring 1994): 177–206

Heightened periods of tension between the United States and the USSR over the status of West Berlin. The first crisis, in 1958, came about when Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev campaigned to reduce the Allied presence in West Berlin and to encourage the West to recognize the German Democratic Republic (GDR). Kruschchev declared he would turn over border control West Berlin and West Germany to the GDR. The United States responded only by authorizing CINCEUR to create a secret planning group (named “Live Oak, ” and active until 1990) to prepare for possible military confrontation. The second crisis, in 1962, involved the massing of tanks on either side of Checkpoint Charlie after the East German leader closed the sector borders with barbed wire and, later, concrete (the Berlin Wall Crisis, 1961).

See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.