COLD WAR

1.What is Cold War?

2.Why Cold War happened?
3.Berlin blockade and airlift
4.The fall of the Berlin Wall
5.Consequences

1. What is Cold War?

Cold war is a state of political and military tension after
the World War II between the USA and the Soviet Union
and their respective allies.

 The differences between the USA and

the Soviet Union
The United States

The Soviet Union

Capitalism

Communism

Democratic

Autocratic/ Dictatorship

Free elections

No elections or fixed

Survival of the fittest

Everybody helps
everybody

Richest world power

Poor economic base

Personal freedom

Society controlled by the

secret police

Freedom of the media

Total censorship

Cold war timeline of events

2. Why Cold War happened?

After the end of the World War II in 1945, 2 allied peace
conferences were held to determine the fate of Germanys
territories: the Yalta conference and Potsdam conference.

German territory is divided

Potsdam Conference splits
Germany into 4 occupation zones
Also split Berlin into 4 zones

Berlin city is divided

3. Berlin Blockade and Airlift

In 1948, Joseph Stalin instituted the Berlin Blockade,
preventing food, materials and supplies from arriving in
West Berlin.

 The Airlift:
Without going to war or giving up the city of Berlin,
the US and its allies began a massive "airlift",
supplying West Berlin with food and other supplies.

Over the next 10 months, the US and Great Britain flew

around 277,000 flights into Berlin. They carried over 2.3
million tons of supplies into the city.

On May 12, 1949 the Soviet Union stopped the blockade

and the airlift was over.

The Berlin Crisis

(1958-1961)

On November 10, 1958, Soviet Premier Khrushchev

demanded Western powers to pull their forces out of
Western Berlin within 6 months.
In the summer of 1961,
President John F. Kennedy
met with Khrushchev but
no solution was found.

 East Germans were dissatisfied with life under the

communist system. Between 1949 and 1961, 2.5 million
East Germans fled from East to West Germany. By
August 1961, an average of 2,000 East Germans were
crossing into the West every day.

Conrad Schumann leaping over

barbed wire into West Berlin

Building the Berlin Wall

August 12-13, 1961, East German soldiers laid down
more than 30 miles of barbed wire barrier through
the heart of Berlin.

 The first concrete pilings went up on the Bernauer

Strasse and at the Potsdamer Platz.
During the rest of 1961,
Berlin Wall continued to
grow, eventually
consisting of a series of
concrete walls up to 15
feet high.

 By the 1980s, this system of walls and electrified fences extended

28 miles through Berlin and 75 miles around West Berlin.

The East Germans also

erected barriers along most of
the 850-mile border between
East and West Germany.

 About 5,000 East Germans escaped to West Germany

but the frequency of successful escapes dwindled as the
wall was increasingly fortified. Thousands of East
Germans were captured during attempted crossings and
191 were killed.

4. The Fall of the Berlin Wall

In 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev assumed
the reins of power in the Soviet Union.
He introduced the policies of Glasnost
("openness") and Perestroika
("restructuring") to the USSR, which
aimed to end the Cold War.

 The unraveling of theSOVIET BLOCbegan in Poland in June

1989.
Like dominoes, Eastern European communist dictatorships fell
one by one.
By the fall of 1989, East and West Germans were tearing down
theBERLIN WALLwith pickaxes.

5. Consequences:
i.

Division of Germany

ii. Deterioration of East-West relation to their worst point

since 1945
iii. Formation of NATO and the coordination of the
Westdefences:
iv. An unipolar world

Division of Germany
Western powers set up the Federal Republic of
Germany in August 1949.
Russians establishing their own German state, the
German Democratic Republic in September 1949.

Deterioration of East-West relation

The Blockade resulted in the collapse of the wartime alliance
and cooperation between the West and the Soviet Union. EastWest relations entered a new, and even more deadly phase.

Formation of NATO
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was formed in April 1949.

An unipolar world
During the Cold War, the world was bipolar, both the
U.S. and Russia were major world powers.
After the Cold War, the international system was
unipolar, the U.S. became the sole world superpower.

Thank you for your patience !

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