Khrushchev and the Berlin Crisis
By: Alina Steadman, Class of 2012
Nikita Khrushchev was the Premier of the USSR during the time of the Berlin Crisis and several other important events and held this position from 1958 to 1964. His leadership saw a large part of the Cold War take place and as leader of the communist world his decisions and actions dramatically influenced the outcome of this strange conflict. Khrushchev took power after Stalin’s death and was partially responsible for the de-Stalinization of the USSR. He was also known for trying to better the lives of ordinary citizens. While his policies to this effect had only varying amounts of success his actions pertaining to Berlin set up the stage for the Berlin Wall and later the Berlin Airlift.
At the end of World War Two Germany was split in two. The western side was controlled by the western powers (America, Britain and France) and was called the Federal Republic of Germany, or West Germany. The eastern side was called the German Democratic Republic (GDR) or more commonly known as East Berlin. This side was tightly controlled by the USSR and was considered a satellite state thereof. Right in between these two countries was the capital, Berlin, half of which was in West Germany and half in East Germany, so Berlin was referred to by either West or East Berlin. The goal was to eventually reunite Germany but the controlling powers had very different ideas on how that would happen and who would control Germany when it was reunited.
During this process the inhabitants of East Berlin were emigrating from East Berlin into West Berlin. The main reason being that while East Berlin was an oppressive, economically dead, communist satellite state; West Berlin, with the help of its western supporters had developed into an economic miracle where, since it was a capitalist state, with hard work you could make a good life for yourself. This mass emigration caused a major ‘brain drain’ in East Berlin. It was called a ‘brain drain’ because many of the people emigrating were professionals: engineers, technicians, doctors, teachers, and lawyers, this portion of the population leaving caused a great deal of hardship to East Berlin’s economy and was Khrushchev’s main reason for closing the border in 1952 (Wikipedia)
After closing the border there was a period of six years where the USSR continued to lose massive amounts of people, and the western powers were continued to control West Berlin without too many consequences. Then in 1958 Khrushchev made his ultimatum to the world. The western powers had six months to get out of West Berlin, make it a free and demilitarized city and then the USSR would have complete control of communication and the western powers would only have access to West Berlin through direct permission of East Berlin government (Berlin Crisis). As to be expected the western powers turned down this offer. They were not so easily going to turn over power of such an important city to a communist power.
Soon Khrushchev realized that his ultimatum was not going to work so he dropped the deadline and in September of 1959 he met at the Big Four foreign ministers conference for three months (Wikipedia). At this time Khrushchev also met privately with President Eisenhower and they both agreed that the most important issue was disbarment and that the Berlin conflict should not be solved on the battlefield. Although this conference failed to bring about any meaningful solution it opened up dialogue between the warring nations for future years.
Soon after the meeting of the Big Four, Khrushchev met with Eisenhower again at Camp David to speak frankly with him (Wikipedia). Eisenhower brought up that ultimatums were a terrible solution because the western powers would not bend and that they could lead to war. In response, Khrushchev questioned why his attempts at peace treaties would be considered a threat to the peace and Eisenhower did not have a good response. Because of this Khrushchev believed that negotiations regarding Berlin were possible, a faulty assumption.
The next negotiations took place in June of 1961 at Vienna Summit, this time a meeting between President Kennedy and Khrushchev. Thinking there was a chance of negotiation Khrushchev made a final ultimatum. He would make his own peace treaty with East Germany and no longer allow Britain, America, and France free access to West Berlin. This free access is primarily what had kept the western powers from interfering too much with the border closing so obviously this would not be acceptable (Wikipedia). In response Kennedy spoke to Congress that although he was not looking for war he was going dramatically increase money to the army and navy and would reinstate the draft. Understandably Khrushchev was not happy and said Kennedy was threatening war.
After this incident Khrushchev lost power, fired because of his inconsistency in policy. Soon after the change in power the Berlin Wall was constructed in 1961, 96 miles long and 302 watch towers (Berlin Wall). Now people trying to escape East Berlin were often shot. Once the wall was constructed only 5000 people successfully escaped, while 3200 were arrested trying and another 280 were killed or injured during the process (Berlin Wall). Despite not being in power during the construction of the wall Khrushchev obviously had an important part to play during the Berlin Crisis.
Works Cited
Berlin Crisis. 7 May 2011. 13 February 2012
<www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/berlin.htm>.
Berlin Wall. n.d. 13 February 2012
<www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1867.html>.
Nikita Khrushchev. n.d. 13
February 2012 <library.thinkquest.org/10826/nikita.htm>.
Wikipedia. n.d. 12 February 2012
<en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Crisis_of_1961>.
Wikipedia. n.d. 13 February 2012 <en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Germany>.