treaty with a reunited Germany. The ACC was now a dead letter. And within a year there would be two German states.
Even now, with that decisive development still to come and relative freedom of movement remaining between Eastern and Western sectors, there was no longer any point in pretending that Berlin was still the capital of Germany. It wasn’t even one city any more, though it wasn’t yet clearly two.
5
‘DISSOLVE THE PEOPLE AND ELECT ANOTHER’
FEW DRAWN-OUT HISTORICAL events or processes came to their ends on the conveniently precise dates cited in the history books. The Berlin Blockade was no exception.
A few seconds after midnight on 12 May 1949, a corporal of the British Royal Corps of Military Police opened the iron gate at the Helmstedt crossing point on the border between the British and the Soviet zones. For the first time in almost a year, a convoy of cars and trucks moved through, heading along the autobahn towards Berlin. At 1.23 a.m., a British military train, pulled by a German engine and driven by a German engineer, set off for Berlin. The first vehicle coming from Berlin arrived at Helmstedt around two that morning, a car driven by an American.
But all was not yet quite what it seemed. Within a very short time, it became obvious that the Soviets had replaced the blockade with a new set of hindrances and restrictions.
After lengthy negotiations about the lifting of the blockade, the SMA had sneaked in a last-minute stipulation that there should be only sixteen trains a day. These must be pulled by Eastern engines and manned by Eastern crews. Moroever, they changed timetables without notice, delayed military trains so that the journey between Helmstedt and Berlin took seven hours instead of two, and produced lists of forbidden exports from Berlin that left 90 per cent of the city’s trade impossible. Trucks were forbidden to travel on the autobahn at night. All mail and postal traffic still had to come in by air, since the Soviets diverted mail trains to their sector and would not release their cargoes.
On 18 May, 400 food trucks were stuck at the border due to Russiandemands for a stamp from the German Economic Commission, an organ of the occupation regime controlled by Soviet appointees. Barge traffic, a large proportion of the city’s trade, was held up by Soviet demands for crew lists and transit permits. 1
Bizarrely, within days of its apparent salvation, Berlin was paralysed from within by a transport strike. The dispute’s cause was a political and economic powerplay. The S-Bahn (overground city railway) was part of the old German railways, the Deutsche Reichsbahn . The Directorate of the Reichsbahn (the RBD) was Soviet-controlled, and paid its railwaymen in East marks even after the D-Mark was introduced. The 15,000 of these who lived in West Berlin found themselves in real distress, unable to pay for goods and services. On 20 May, these employees refused to operate the rail network in Berlin and also the routes to western Germany. They occupied many stations and disabled the signals and the tracks.
The Soviet response was to send Eastern-sector police not only into Eastern stations but into Western ones, including the main Zoo station. There was shooting. Several strikers were wounded and one killed. For a state that claimed to represent the workers to behave in this fashion was, to say the least, interesting.
The British, in response, sent Stumm police into Charlottenburg, and then to Zoo. After three-sided scuffles between Eastern- and Western-sector police on the one hand and strikers on the other, the Easterners withdrew. It wasn’t until 24 May that the Eastern police agreed to withdraw from all Western rail facilities. Days of negotiations stretched into weeks. The Easterners, whose own economy and distribution networks were starting to be affected, offered up to 60 per cent of the men’s wages in West marks.
The offer was refused. The strikers were getting strike pay and
Even now, with that decisive development still to come and relative freedom of movement remaining between Eastern and Western sectors, there was no longer any point in pretending that Berlin was still the capital of Germany. It wasn’t even one city any more, though it wasn’t yet clearly two.
5
‘DISSOLVE THE PEOPLE AND ELECT ANOTHER’
FEW DRAWN-OUT HISTORICAL events or processes came to their ends on the conveniently precise dates cited in the history books. The Berlin Blockade was no exception.
A few seconds after midnight on 12 May 1949, a corporal of the British Royal Corps of Military Police opened the iron gate at the Helmstedt crossing point on the border between the British and the Soviet zones. For the first time in almost a year, a convoy of cars and trucks moved through, heading along the autobahn towards Berlin. At 1.23 a.m., a British military train, pulled by a German engine and driven by a German engineer, set off for Berlin. The first vehicle coming from Berlin arrived at Helmstedt around two that morning, a car driven by an American.
But all was not yet quite what it seemed. Within a very short time, it became obvious that the Soviets had replaced the blockade with a new set of hindrances and restrictions.
After lengthy negotiations about the lifting of the blockade, the SMA had sneaked in a last-minute stipulation that there should be only sixteen trains a day. These must be pulled by Eastern engines and manned by Eastern crews. Moroever, they changed timetables without notice, delayed military trains so that the journey between Helmstedt and Berlin took seven hours instead of two, and produced lists of forbidden exports from Berlin that left 90 per cent of the city’s trade impossible. Trucks were forbidden to travel on the autobahn at night. All mail and postal traffic still had to come in by air, since the Soviets diverted mail trains to their sector and would not release their cargoes.
On 18 May, 400 food trucks were stuck at the border due to Russiandemands for a stamp from the German Economic Commission, an organ of the occupation regime controlled by Soviet appointees. Barge traffic, a large proportion of the city’s trade, was held up by Soviet demands for crew lists and transit permits. 1
Bizarrely, within days of its apparent salvation, Berlin was paralysed from within by a transport strike. The dispute’s cause was a political and economic powerplay. The S-Bahn (overground city railway) was part of the old German railways, the Deutsche Reichsbahn . The Directorate of the Reichsbahn (the RBD) was Soviet-controlled, and paid its railwaymen in East marks even after the D-Mark was introduced. The 15,000 of these who lived in West Berlin found themselves in real distress, unable to pay for goods and services. On 20 May, these employees refused to operate the rail network in Berlin and also the routes to western Germany. They occupied many stations and disabled the signals and the tracks.
The Soviet response was to send Eastern-sector police not only into Eastern stations but into Western ones, including the main Zoo station. There was shooting. Several strikers were wounded and one killed. For a state that claimed to represent the workers to behave in this fashion was, to say the least, interesting.
The British, in response, sent Stumm police into Charlottenburg, and then to Zoo. After three-sided scuffles between Eastern- and Western-sector police on the one hand and strikers on the other, the Easterners withdrew. It wasn’t until 24 May that the Eastern police agreed to withdraw from all Western rail facilities. Days of negotiations stretched into weeks. The Easterners, whose own economy and distribution networks were starting to be affected, offered up to 60 per cent of the men’s wages in West marks.
The offer was refused. The strikers were getting strike pay and
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