No Berlin Airlift - Berlin Thrown To The Wolves?

What would have happened had Berlin been abandoned during the crisis? Many military experts believed it was a complete impossibility that Berlin could have been saved by an airlift rescue!
 
It turns public opinion in the Allied occupied zones strongly against them. The Soviets would see it as a sign of weakness and would carry out some other provocative act soon after.
 
It turns public opinion in the Allied occupied zones strongly against them. The Soviets would see it as a sign of weakness and would carry out some other provocative act soon after.

That's why despite Berlin being of questionable value and almost impossible to hold militarily the Western powers never budged on the issue throughout the Cold War. They knew that if they caved on Berlin the Soviets would keep pushing and pushing, probably leading to WWIII sooner rather than later.
 
The impact from a PR standpoint would be a clusterfuck, though at least one factor in Berlin being yielded would be the extremely low US nuclear arsenal, knowledge of which was a major factor in Stalin deciding to inaugurate that whole mess to start with.
 

Japhy

Banned
The West German economy starts using Soviet-zone money rather then the currency introduced in the West that started the crisis in the first place. That was the goal of the blockade, to get the West Berliners to integrate themselves into the East German economic system, what that results in as far as a political settlement can be varied, between handing the whole of West Berlin over, or the acceptance of a *Stalin Note, or simply the reduction of "West Berlin" to being a WAllies Garrison.

In West Germany itself though, the faith in the economy, and the new currency would collapse on itself, and damaging the West German economic miracle.
 
To address the OP however. It would make forming the Federal Republic of Germany much harder, and if it did form it's unlikely to become a NATO member, much more likely to try for some sort of neutrality as a buffer zone between east and west. There's probably also consequences for the formation of the European Coal and Steel Community, which was the organization that evolved into the European Union.

Oh and it probably wouldn't do much for Truman's election chances.

None of that of course accounts for what the Soviets might do after seizing Berlin.
 
East Germany would be economically stronger as there wouldn't be brain drain to West Berlin. I'm not sure but the number of people migrating to West Germany from the GDR trough Berlin might have been even several millions.
 
...And what would JFK have said if he happened to be in Frankfurt and not in Berlin???

hint: ".. I am a XXXXXX")
 

Japhy

Banned
Absolutely, perhaps if someone like Wallace was POTUS?

In spite of Popular Opinion, Wallace wasn't a complete idiot, by the time you get to the Berlin Crisis he's have learned his lesson after 1945-46 foolishness. Of course President Wallace opens the option to avoid the Berlin crisis completely, if German policy differs.
 
In spite of Popular Opinion, Wallace wasn't a complete idiot, by the time you get to the Berlin Crisis he's have learned his lesson after 1945-46 foolishness. Of course President Wallace opens the option to avoid the Berlin crisis completely, if German policy differs.

That or the Berlin Crisis might get worse, would Wallace be willing to challenge the military's expertise like Truman was or go with the more conventional option of sending an armed convoy across the Soviet Zone? If he does the latter that WILL spark of WWIII in a hot minute.
 
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