The Berlin Crisis

Berlin

Never, Enter, Soviet, Waitrose

Whats going on in Berlin?

·     Each year 300,000 East Germans migrate to West Germany via Berlin 

·     Most are young, talented and professional people

·     Since 1949 East Germany had lost 3 million people to the west 

·     West Berlin contained the largest combination of espionage agents ever assembled in one place, 110 miles deep into communist territories 

·     America poured $600 bn into West Berlin and the Bonn government matched it

·     They produced nearly $2bn worth in goods a year and they had a greater GNP than more than half of the countries in NATO

·     It was the greatest manufacturing city in Germany 

·     West Berlin was utopia in contrast with the drab depressing East Berlin 

Khrushchev can’t handle it:

·     He could stand by and watch the steady flow of propaganda about Berlin from the Americans 

·     Khrushchev decided to move in late 1958

·     The time was now as Eisenhower didn’t have many built up conventional forces, Eisenhower was seeking a way to avoid nuclear fallout and he was up for negotiations 

·     Khrushchev feared; the growing rearmament in West Germany, the American planes that could carry nuclear bombs in West Germany and that the Bonn government was on the verge of joining the French and Italians and the Benelux nations in a common market, putting West Germany securely in the Western Bloc 

·     Khrushchev was under pressure 

Khrushchev’s move:

·     November 10^th1958, he declared that the USSR was ready to hand East Berlin over to East Germany 

·     The West would then have to negotiate the rights of access to West Berlin with the East German government 

·     But the west hadn’t recognised the East Germany government 

·     The West were only in Berlin on the basis of pre-surrender occupation agreements so if Khrushchev signed a peace treaty with E. Germany the occupation would end

·     But instead he said any attack on E. Germany was an attack on the USSR and said if an agreement wasn’t reached within 6 months then they would have to speak to E. Germany 

·     The only satisfying resolution of was to turn West Berlin into a free city with the 10,000 British, French and American troops withdrawn 

·     The West Berlin economy would then be integrated into that of East Germany and the USSR

·     Eisenhower rejected this 

·     He also refused to increase armed services dramatically 

Tensions rising:

·     With the 6 months deadline approaching Eisenhower said that no further funding would be needed 

·     At a press conference on March 11^thhe dismissed demands to increase army size 

·     He saw more men as more division and it would do little to affect the military balance in Europe 

·     His fear was that the Russians would frighten the US into an arms race that would bankrupt the country

·     Khrushchev also reduced his arms forces and was just as nervous to exchange nuclear strikes 

·     As a result, he denied his time limit and accepted an invitation to Camp David, Maryland in the fall of 1959