Why was Berlin a cause of tension between east and west after World War 2?

Answer 1

At the end of World War II, the winners divided the capital city of Germany, Berlin. The US and its allies got West Berlin; The Soviet Union and its allies got East Berlin. Berlin was right in the middle of East Germany, which was controlled by the Soviet Union and its allies.

The Soviets wanted to take over West Berlin, so that they'd have the whole city. They cut off all roads in and out of West Berlin to keep supplies from going in to the inhabitants and force a surrender.

The Truman administration initiated the Berlin Airlift, where they flew supplies into Berlin, daily, until the Soviets gave up and re-opened the roads.

Answer 2

Berlin was at the heart of the cold war, as the Berlin Wall basically separated the capitalists from the communists, the capitalists on the west, and the communist on the east. Many did not want live in a communist Berlin and around 5,000 people attempted to escape over the wall to the west of Germany, over 100 that tried to escape died. During the June 1961, Khrushchev threatened Kennedy that he would sign a separate peace treaty with the East of Germany, effectively cutting off Allied access to West Berlin which would make Berlin a fully communist country creating tension. There was also a lot of tension between the USA and USSR as the USA was trying to prevent communism as much as possible. Also the people knew that Stalin wanted to make the whole of Berlin a communist country, so the people were scared of a Communist attack on the west of Germany. Theese were all factors of why there was so much tension in Berlin during 1945 to 1949. I hope that helped (:

Answer 3

There was continuing tension over Berlin because Russia didn't want Germany to become powerful again (threatening there people). Seeing as Berlin was the capital, USSR wanted to cripple Germany so they wanted to control Berlin, USA and Britain new that russia wanted to cripple USSR and therefore didn't agree. Tjis caused tension.

Answer 4

Berlin, like Germany, had been split into 4 sectors after WWII, each occupated by one of the following 4; The USSR , France, Great Britain or the USA. Brlin itself was situated right in the middle of the zone occupated by the USSR.

This caused tensions as the USSR and the allies (GB, Fr and USA) had very different opinions on how much Germany should be allowed to recover - the USSR felt that a stronger, reformed Germany would be a threat to them in the future, whereas the allies wanted Germany as a future ally, and also did not want to repeat the mistakes of the treaty of Versailles. This meant that when the allies took steps towards rebuilding Germany, the USSR felt threatened and felt action was needed to stop them. One example of this is the Berlin Blockade in 1948, when Stalin stopped all land transport to West Berlin for the allies in an attempt to make them leave.

The differing governments also created a problem in Berlin. The USSR was strictly communist and had introduced a communist government into East Germany and East Berlin linking back to Moscow, whereas the allies were capitalist and democratic (especially the USA), which meant that they wanted Germany to be a democracy. This caused tensions, particually because West Berlin was to be a democracy, which the USSR did not like as it meant that there was a hole in their communist place, somewhere that they had no control over which could potentially cause problems for them.

This is a very brief idea about Berlin and why it caused tensions, and there are many other reasons that are more complicated, but I hope this helped :)