The Berlin Airlift

by Ann Tusa and John Tusa

Book Overview

In 1948 a daring Allied air operation supplied the besieged population of West Berlin during the first confrontation of the Cold War.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 068911513X
• ISBN13: 9780689115134
• Release Date: January 1988
• Publisher: Atheneum Books
• Length: 445 Pages
• Weight: 1.90 lbs.

Customer Reviews

The Berlin Airlift from a British Perspective

Anniversaries typically spark the reconsideration of historic events in all manner of popular ways, from reenactments to ceremonies to historical publications. The fortieth anniversary of the Berlin Airlift in 1988 was no exception. Ann and John Tusa's "The Berlin Airlift" was one of many publications about the episode originally appearing as a result of that anniversary. It asserts that the Berlin Blockade represented a titanic struggle between two blocks of nations with divergent ideologies that nearly plunged the world into another major war. More important, however, it concentrates on the intensely human experience of the crisis, describing the problems and successes of the personalities involved. Throughout, in words and pictures, it creates vivid images of the crisis for a largely popular audience. The blockade of Berlin marked the first direct confrontation between the West and the Soviet Union in the post-World War II era. The United States, France, and the United Kingdom responded to the Soviet siege with an ingenious means of maintaining the allied presence in a city cut-off from the rest of Western Europe without provoking combat. American and British fliers operated a complex shuttle service between western Germany and Berlin for some fifteen months between June 1948 and September 1949, hauling more than 2.3 million tons of supplies to the better than two million inhabitants of Berlin. This sustenance allowed the western allies to maintain their presence and influence in the city, if only by their fingernails, while diplomats worked on a settlement. Ann and John Tusas' book presents the events of the Berlin blockade and airlift as an epic struggle between nations. Written from a decidedly British viewpoint--John Tusa is a journalist with the BBC-"The Berlin Airlift" contains a rousing story of individual heroism and high drama. It reads like a classic western, with good guys (the western allies) and bad guys (the Soviets and communist Germans), and anecdotes about how these two forces clashed. Like any good western, the ending was predictable as the Americans and their allies ultimately defeated the Soviets. "The Berlin Airlift" will be of more interest to non-specialist readers than to students of Berlin Airlift historiography, although those knowledgeable about many aspects of the crisis will still benefit from the Tusas' descriptions of the British contributions to the airlift. The authors thoroughly researched British records and analyzed that aspect of the story, a particular area that has been slighted in previous studies of the crisis, and they present their findings better and with more verve than any earlier work. The position of the British government in the crisis; the development, organization, and, operation of the British task force flying airlift missions; and the British role in negotiating the lifting of the blockade are well documented in "The Berlin Airlift." There are, however, several flaws which make "The B