corridors. Finally, they blockaded the city totally. The Americans - specifically, General Lucius Clay, - invented the Air Lift. For over a year, one B-29 after another flew into Tempelhof Airport and supplied the city until the blockade was lifted. Americans were heroes to West Berliners during in the late 'forties and well beyond. Berlin cleaned up the war mess, grew and prospered, not quite as dynamically as West Germany, but not too far behind. In June of 1961, Walter Ulbricht, the old head of the German Communist government said in an interview with a Western paper that no one had any intention of building a wall. Widely reported, this caused a massive exodus from the East. They knew then it was coming for sure. Thus, the Wall was constructed by the SED, the Socialist Unity Party of East Germany in August of 1961 as a protective wall against West German fascism and American capitalist imperialism. And for quite some time, it seemed to be working from the perspective of the East German government. It was really designed to give them breathing room by stopping the flood of refugees. Some East Germans escaped, but they were few. Every sort of invention imaginable was put to the test. People disguised themselves as Russian officers, dug tunnels, and flew home made airplanes, packaged themselves as submarines.The Berlin Blockade destroyed the lives of many, if not all Berliners. Families were torn apart, and people died trying to move to the better side of the wall. Without the aide of US air lifts, the wall may never have been removed, and lives would be forever changed....
