A Soviet blockade of the three western sectors of Berlin started on June 24 1948. At that point, the city, like the rest of Germany, was split into areas of Russian, British, US and French control as part of the post-second world war settlement that was shaped in allied conferences in Tehran, Yalta and Potsdam.
For a short period immediately after the end of the war in May 1945, cooperation between the victorious powers administered the city and its residents jointly. But within a year, this initial cooperation was becoming ever more fractious.
By 1948, the rift between the Soviet Union and its one-time western allies had further deepened as a result of the merger of the British and American occupation zones into “Bizonia” – the nucleus of the future west German state. Following Soviet withdrawal from the allied control council, France, Britain and the US introduced a new currency – the Deutschmark – in their sectors on June 24 1948.
