Why We Won in Berlin
MUHLEN, NORBERT
Why We Won in Berlin The Berlin Blockade. By W. Phillips Davison. Princeton. 423 pp. $7.50. Reviewed by Norbert Muhlen Author, "The Return of Germany"; contributor, "Reader's Digest," "Saturday...
...It took the stamina of one great man, Mayor Ernst Reuter—ably assisted by a dozen minor officials of the trade unions, the city administration and the parties—to turn the widespread timid reluctance into a firm will to resist...
...contributor, "Reader's Digest," "Saturday Evening Post" Ten years ago—on June 8, 1948, to be exact—the Soviet Union began its blockade of the Western sectors of Berlin...
...Even in Washington, the decision to hold out in Berlin was made personally, almost abruptly, by one man, President Truman, against the "concern" voiced by members of his Cabinet, the Pentagon and the State Department...
...At the outset, a Western victory in the Berlin battle seemed considerably less certain than it now does in retrospect...
...And, instead of merely recalling what happened, the author also explains why it happened...
...While Davison bases his study of Berlin's public temper mainly on opinion surveys and the local press, he neglects the great impact of two media which played a vital role: the American-controlled German-language daily, Die Neue Zeitung, and the American radio station RIAS...
...This margin was decided primarily by local public sentiment...
...When Moscow finally conceded defeat, freedom had won a major victory...
...With impressive mastery of the material, he has disentangled the interplay of diplomatic moves and popular moods in the great chess game of strangled lifelines vs...
...airlift...
...Whether the fruits of the Berlin victory were not given away at the subsequent Paris meeting is another question outside the range of Davison's valuable study...
...In the first stage of the blockade, the majority of Berliners were rather wavering in their attitude...
...Yet, as he points out "in the last analysis, the state of public opinion depended principally on a few individuals...
...Also, his study regrettably overlooks the voluntary, non-partisan German organizations which sprang up all over West Berlin and served as important catalysts of public, opinion...
...A descriptive and analytical history of this contest has long been overdue...
...Yet this "rigidity" paid off in the end...
...The few individuals who deserve the main credit for the victorious outcome of the blockade were animated by what today, in a quite desultory fashion, is described as "rigidity...
...Now W. Phillips Davison—commissioned by the Rand Corporation—has splendidly filled the gap...
...Such observers as Walter Lippmann and Sumner Welles, for instance, were quick to predict the failure of the airlift...
...Brutally disregarding solemn agreements with the Allies, the Russians tried to pressure the free part of the city into submission to Communist rule...
...Even the inner councils of the two leading political parties, the Social Democrats and the Christian Democrats, were sometimes ready to give in...
...It was the courageous leadership of two men— General Lucius D. Clay and Berlin's U. S. Commandant, General Frank Howley—which set aside the hesitations and objections of most military and diplomatic advisers, experts and officials...
...An analysis of their part in the events would have been extremely valuable...
...And the same—though less sharply underlined by Davison—was true of the Western Allies...
...Davison concludes that Berlin succeeded in holding out by only a very narrow margin...
...It seems to me this is an important point...
...They kept up the blockade for almost a year, but the Berliners and the Western powers resisted...
Vol. 41 • September 1958 • No. 31
