Berlin Crises (1958–1961)

Cold War conflicts between the Soviet Union and the United States concerning the future of the divided German city of Berlin. In 1948, when the Soviet Union's blockade of Berlin prevented Western access to that city, the United States and Great Britain responded by initiating the Berlin airlift to keep food and supplies flowing to West Berlin and to maintain its connection to the West.

After the Soviet Union lifted the blockade in 1949, the United States, Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union maintained the status quo in Berlin, whereby each of the former World War II allies governed their own sector and had free access to all other sectors. The free city of West Berlin, surrounded by the communist German Democratic Republic (East Germany), was a Cold War crucible for the United States and the Soviet Union, in which both superpowers repeatedly asserted their claims to dominance in Europe.

On November 7, 1958, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev demanded that the United States and its allies relinquish their occupation roles in Berlin. He also declared that if they did not sign an agreement to this effect within six months, the Soviet Union would no longer honor their postwar agreement and would enter into a separate Berlin treaty with East Germany.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower refused Khrushchev's demands, insisting that their Berlin agreement still held. On November 27, the Soviet Union announced that it rejected the postwar agreements concerning the occupation and governance of Germany and West Berlin. Khrushchev also proposed that Berlin become a free city. Although Khrushchev did not indicate that the Soviet Union would use military force if the United States did not comply, the United States understood that the Soviet Union intended to back up its threat.

The United States and Britain refused to agree to the Soviet demands, arguing that a free Berlin, with no guaranteed access to the West, would soon be controlled by communist East Germany. Multiple attempts to find a diplomatic solution were fruitless. In 1959 and 1960, U.S.-Soviet talks took place in Geneva, Camp David, and Paris, but no agreement was reached.

With the new administration of President John F. Kennedy in 1961, the Berlin situation heated up. At the Vienna Summit in June 1961, Khrushchev reiterated his demand that if a Berlin agreement was not achieved by December, the Soviet Union would sign a separate treaty with East Germany. Kennedy made it clear that Berlin was of supreme strategic importance to the United States and free access to the city must be maintained.

On August 13, 1961, the East German government, backed by the Soviet Union, began to build a barrier [Page 69]between East Berlin (the Soviet-occupied sector) and West Berlin, preventing refugees from escaping to the West and triggering the Berlin Wall crisis. The United States did not intervene because the Soviet Union was exercising control over its sector. When the December 1961 treaty deadline passed without incident, the conflict over the future of the city receded with no further Soviet agitation concerning a treaty.

A major outcome of the Berlin crises was a new understanding between the United States and the Soviet Union: The Soviet Union would continue to have dominance over its East European allies and East Berlin while the United States and its Western allies would claim Western Europe, West Germany, and West Berlin within their sphere of influence.

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