Berlin Blockade
Also called: Berlin Airlift
When the Soviet Union cut road, rail and water routes to West Berlin, the US and Britain supplied the city by air for eleven months (the Berlin Airlift). The next year Germany split into East and West.
Henry Ries / USAF · Public domain · Source
After the Western zones introduced a new currency, the Deutsche Mark, the Soviet Union on 24 June 1948 closed every route to West Berlin, which lay deep inside the Soviet zone. The US and Britain flew in food and coal for its more than two million people, at times landing a transport every few minutes.
When the blockade failed, the Soviets lifted it on 12 May 1949. Meanwhile the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany, May 1949) was founded in the Western zones and the German Democratic Republic (East Germany, October 1949) in the Soviet zone. It was the first great crisis of the Cold War.