Question

Second Berlin Crisis (1958-1962): Describe the political context in which this crisis took place. As part of your response, you want to be sure to explain what specific events, actions, and/or policies led to this crisis between the U.S. (and its allies) and the Soviet Union.

Answer 1

1961 Berlin crisis, the Cold War dispute between the Soviet Union and the US over the future of the divided German city of Berlin. It culminated in August 1961, when the Berlin Wall was built. When the Berlin blockade of the Soviet Union blocked Western access to that city in 1948, the United States and the United Kingdom responded by launching the Berlin airlift to keep the food and supplies flowing to West Berlin and to preserve its link to the West. With the lifting of the blockade in 1949, the United States, the United Kingdom, France and the Soviet Union maintained the status quo in Berlin, under which each of the former World War II allies controlled their own sector

The United States and Britain refused to agree to the Soviet demands, arguing that communist East Germany would soon control a free Berlin, with no guaranteed access to the West. Many attempts at a diplomatic solution have been fruitless. U.S.-Soviet talks took place at Camp David in September 1959 but no agreement was reached, and a summit in Paris in May 1960 collapsed in the aftermath of the so-calledU-2 Crisis, caused by the shooting down of a U.S. spy plane over the Soviet Union.

By July 1961, American officials reported that more than 1,000 East German refugees crossed every day into West Berlin, an economic and demographic drain that would spell catastrophe for the East unchecked. On the night of 12–13 August 1961, the Soviet-backed East German government began building a barrier between East Berlin (the Soviet-occupied sector) and West Berlin. The US did not interfere because the Soviet Union exerted power over their business. As the December 1961 deadline for Khrushchev expired without incident, the controversy over the city's future receded with no more Soviet agitation about a treaty.

A significant consequence of the Berlin crisis was a new understanding between the US and the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union would continue to control its Eastern European allies and East Berlin, while within its sphere of power the United States and its allies would claim Western Europe, West Germany and West Berlin.