Origins of the Cold War: Role of Germany

ORIGINS OF THE COLD WAR: ROLE OF GERMANY

In what ways, and with what results, was Germany the key focus of the early stages of the Cold War? Candidates could consider: Yalta and Potsdam; the division of Germany and Berlin into four; the problem of reparations; disagreements between East and West; the Berlin Blockade and Airlift; division into two countries – the German Democratic Republic and the Federal Republic of Germany. This division could be considered as either an example of “ways” or “results”. Other results could include: the different political and economic systems in each part; exodus from east to west; Marshall Plan; NATO; Warsaw Pact; entrenchment of the Cold War and perhaps the Berlin Wall, but no further.

Historical Context

1.        Tensions in the Cold War rose as high as they did because Germany's defeat in 1945 left a power vacuum in central Europe in which the former members of the Grand Coalition confronted each other “eyeball to eyeball”.

2.        At the Yalta Conference it had been agreed that Germany should be divided into four zones, each administered by one of the victorious powers.

a.        Disagreements intensified, however, and a united Germany became a prize which neither the USSR nor the Western Allies could concede to the other.

Division of Germany

3.        With the economic integration of the British and American zones (Bizonia) in January 1947 and the announcement of Marshall Aid the following June the Americans had given notice that they were not ready to wait indefinitely for an agreement over a united Germany.

4.        The decision to set up a West German state was finally taken at another conference attended by Britain, France, the USA and the Benelux states, which sat from February to June 1948 in London.

a.        In the Ruhr the Western Powers already possessed the industrial powerhouse of Europe, and could therefore afford to risk the partition of Germany by pressing ahead in 1948 with the creation of a semi-independent West Germany.

5.        In the meantime the Russians were already beginning to hint at the pressure they could exert on the Allied position in Berlin by interfering with western Allied inter-zonal traffic, and in March 1948 they walked out of the Control Commission and broke off discussions on the introduction of a single currency for the whole of Germany.

a.        Without war the USSR could not stop this, but, with the Western military presence in Berlin, they did have a hostage. By bringing pressure to bear on this outpost they could, so they hoped, wring concessions from London, Washington and Paris. It was Khrushchev who crudely observed: 'Berlin is the testicles of the West ... every time I want to make the West scream I squeeze on Berlin'.

6.        Over the next two months the Western Allies prepared for the coming trial of strength. General Lucius Clay, the American Military Governor, argued that the Allies should stay in Berlin come 'hell or high water'.

a.        Berlin was the symbol of the Cold War, but also the point where the western Allies were at their most vulnerable.

Berlin Blockade

7.        In June the Soviets were dealt a double blow to their German policy: on the 7th the Allies announced the decision to create a West German state. On the 20th the new Deutschmark

a.        Stalin believed that he could force the Western Allies to drop their plans for a West German state by blockading West Berlin.

8.        By late summer 1948 the success of the airlift was still far from certain. Stalin interpreted the Allied approach as a sign of weakness. He uncompromisingly demanded that not only should the decision to set up the West German state be revoked but that the Deutschmark should be withdrawn from West Berlin and replaced by the new Russian currency.

a.        Stalin’s aim was to restore economic unity in Berlin and unify administration of the city. He believed that would have served as a basis for winning over the population of West Berlin, creating the preconditions for completely ousting Western Powers from Berlin.

9.        To the Soviet’s surprise, the airlift continued through the winter. The winter of 1948-9 was, however, exceptionally mild, the effective deployment of the large American C54s flew 8,000 tons per day by April 1949.

a.        Militarily it made sense for the Western Allies to pull out from such an isolated outpost, but if they had, they would have lost credibility as protectors of the West German state and abandoned the West Berlin population to the USSR and their East German allies.

10.     Consequently Stalin, unless he was ready actually to go to war over Berlin, had little option but to cut his losses, and in early May he called off the blockade.

a.        As a result, the West set up the Federal Republic (FRG) in August 1949, and two months later the East set up the German Democratic Republic (GDR).

b.       The failure of the blockade led, as the American diplomat George Kennan predicted, to “an irrevocable congealment of the division of Europe into two military zones: a Soviet zone and a US zone”.

                                                   i.      Division was inevitable because both sides would not risk a united Germany which could possibly become ally to the other side.

11.     The polarization of power in was further reinforced by the signing of mutual defence treaties by each side. On the one side were the NATO states to which West Germany now belonged, and on the other were the Warsaw Pact States which the GDR was in the process of joining.

a.        By the time of the Geneva Conference in July 1955 the Cold war division of Europe was consolidated.

b.       “Churchill's Iron Curtain had become a reality.” David Williamson

Berlin Crisis

12.     Ultimately $1.4 billion was given to West Germany in Marshall Aid.

a.        Whereas Stalin intended to keep Germany weak and exploit her resources to prevent her from ever re-invading the USSR again, the West heavily invested into the recovery of West Germany.

b.       Thus with Marshall Aid and a quick economic recovery, West Germany served as a prime example of capitalism. In contrast to the poorer and struggling East Germany, this was both threatening and embarrassing to Stalin.

13.     It was through West Berlin that thousands of east Germans fled to the West-- Between 1945 and 1961 about one-sixth of the whole East German population had fled westwards.

a.        A prosperous West Germany attracted many of the youngest and most ambitious citizens of East Germany.

b.       West Berlin represented an “an island of freedom in a Communist sea” for east Germans according to JFK, and Khrushchev realized it was essential to stop skilled workers and professionals fleeing in large numbers.

14.     The growing unrest in the GDR caused by the forced collectivisation of agriculture and the ever increasing number of refugees to West Germany finally persuaded him that something had to be done to prevent an East German collapse.

a.        As a result, Khrushchev made the decision to close off the East Berlin frontier. At first the border was sealed off with barbed wire; but when no Western countermeasures followed, a more permanent concrete wall was constructed.

b.       By tolerating these actions, the Western Powers in effect recognised East Germany The Wall both consolidated the GDR and ensured that the Soviet Union was still responsible for maintaining international access to West Berlin.

15.     The prolonged crisis over Berlin effectively ended with the construction of the Wall, although this was not immediately obvious at the time

a.        The subsequent long period of detente in Europe rested firmly on the status quo in Germany and Berlin, which was underwritten by what was perceived to be nuclear parity between the superpowers. Only when Russia was no longer strong enough to maintain this did the East German state crumble and Berlin eventually become once again the capital of a united Germany.

Martin Walker. The Cold War (1994).
Building of the Berlin Wall: “The Soviet Union was not unhappy with the outcome… there was a sense of Soviet satisfaction.”, “The continent’s political permafrost settled deeper …Europe settled down into its two armed camps…”

David Painter. The Cold War: An International History (1999).
“The Berlin Wall was an ideological defeat of colossal proportions for the Soviet Union and world Communism.”
The construction of the Wall could be seen as concrete evidence of the inability of East Germany to win the loyalty of its inhabitants because Soviet-style socialism was losing its economic competition with capitalism.

Bradley Lightbody. The Cold War (1999).
“…as the Wall was raised peaceful coexistence collapsed.” Khrushchev’s policy of peaceful coexistence failed.

David Williamson. Berlin: The Flashpoint of the Coldwar, 1948-89 (2003).
“Churchill's Iron Curtain had become a reality.” (or anything else in this note)

Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr, Origins of the Cold War (1967).
“…the existence of any non-Communist state was by definition a threat to the Soviet Union.”

Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (Knopf, 1945).
“ These[The Russians and Americans] alone are proceeding …along a path to which no limit can be perceived.”

Tocqueville predicted in 1835 that America and Russia would arise as world powers because each was the strongest representations of two conflicting types of power: democracy versus authoritarianism (“The principal instrument of the former is freedom; of the latter, servitude.”). Therefore the Cold War was a conflict in the balance of powers.