The Strangling of Berlin

Colonel Frank ‘Howlin Mad’ Howley’s greatest concern in the spring of 1948 was that his Soviet opposite number, General Kotikov, would cut supplies to the Western sectors of the city and thereby starve its military garrisons into submission.

To preempt this, he drew up a “Basic Assumption Plan” that set down the minimum stockpile needed to keep those garrisons alive. His “assumption” was that the Soviets would stop supplies of both food and fuel: if so, everything needed to support the 6,500 allied soldiers, along with their families and staff, would have to be transported along the single-track railway that ran through Soviet-controlled territory from Marienborn to Berlin, a distance of 110 miles.

That was one logistical headache. A far greater challenge would be if General Kotikov also cut supplies to the two and a quarter million inhabitants living in the Western sectors of Berlin. This would create an untenable situation. It was simply not credible to keep the entire city alive by bringing in everything necessary by rail.

Frank Howley’s idea of supplying Berlin’s troops by train laid bare the very real problem of access to the city. For the previous three years, the Western powers had been using one of two railway lines that linked the capital with the Western-occupied sectors of Germany. The first of these lines crossed the British-Soviet border at Helmstedt (in Saxony), while the other crossed the American-Soviet border at Hof (in Bavaria).

The drive was a bleak experience in the winter months when the difficulties of dealing with truculent Soviet border guards were compounded by snow, ice, and Arctic conditions.

The only other means of access was via the two sanctioned autobahns, which followed more or less the same routes as the railway. The drive was a bleak experience in the winter months when the difficulties of dealing with truculent Soviet border guards were compounded by snow, ice, and Arctic conditions.

But it was with the railways - not the roads - that the trouble first began. In the small hours of April 1, 1948, the Frankfurt–Berlin steam express Berliner was approaching the Soviet frontier town of Marienborn, the last stop before the German capital. The train was carrying three hundred American army officers and enlisted men, many of whom were rejoining wives and loved ones in Berlin.

The Berliner shuddered to a halt at the border post, hissing steam and coal dust into the freezing night air. As it did so, armed Soviet border police could be seen emerging from the dimly lit station office, their faces illuminated by their mercury vapor lamps. There was nothing unusual about this, for they had the right to check the documents of German passengers....

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