ÿþ<html> <head> <title> WHKMLA : History of the Early Cold War : Cold War Events </title> <!-- copyright Alexander Ganse, 2001 --> </head> <body bgcolor = "lightgreen"> <div align = "center"> <TABLE border = "0" cellspace="0" cellpadding="0" align="center"> <TR> <TD align = "center" valign = "center"> <A HREF = "../../index.html"> <img src = "../../banner.jpg" border = "0"> </A></TD></TR></TABLE> <TABLE border = "0" cellspace="0" cellpadding="0" align="center"> <TR> <TD width = "150" height = "36" align = "center" valign = "center"> <font size = "2" face = "arial"><B> </B></font></TD> <TD width = "36" height = "36" align = "center" valign = "center"> <img src = "../../region/arrowleft.gif" width = "36" height = "36" border = "0"> </A></TD> <TD align = "center" valign = "center"> <A HREF = "xecw.html"> <img src = "../banners/banecw.jpg" border = "0"> </A></TD> <TD width = "36" height = "36" align = "center" valign = "center"> <img src = "../../region/arrowright.gif" width = "36" height = "36" border = "0"></A> </TD> <TD width = "150" height = "36" align = "center" valign = "center"> <font size = "2" face = "arial"><B> </B></font></TD></TR></TABLE> <BR><BR><BR> <script language="JavaScript"> <!-- function SymError() { return true; } window.onerror = SymError; //--> </script> <script type="text/javascript"><!-- google_ad_client = "pub-0213752126925919"; google_alternate_color = "FFFFE1"; google_ad_width = 728; google_ad_height = 90; google_ad_format = "728x90_as"; google_ad_channel ="4814426207"; google_ad_type = "text"; google_page_url = document.location; google_color_border = "FF3300"; google_color_bg = "FFFFE1"; google_color_link = "0000CC"; google_color_url = "008000"; google_color_text = "6F6F6F"; //--></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js"> </script> <BR><BR><BR> </div> <TABLE border = "0" cellspace="0" cellpadding="0" align="center"> <TR> <TD width = "900" align = "center" valign = "center"> <font size = "6" face = "arial"><B> Cold War Events </B></font> </TD></TR></TABLE><BR> <BR><BR> <font size = "4" face = "Times Roman"> At the YALTA CONFERENCE in February 1945, the partition of Europe in spheres of interest, as proposed by Churchill, had been accepted. Austria and Germany, especially the capitals Vienna and Berlin, had to be administrated jointly by the 4 Allied powers. <BR> In 1946 Stalin ordered a tight border fence intended to be impenetrable to be erected along the Soviet sphere's western border, which Winston Churchill, in reference to an expression formulated by Joseph Goebbels in early 1945, christened the IRON CURTAIN. Relations between the Allies cooled down. The western allies responded with lip-service on the erection of the Iron Curtain and on the establishment of PEOPLE'S DEMOCRACIES in the Soviet sphere of influence (Bulgaria 1947-Czechoslovakia 1948). Yet when Stalin claimed control over Bosphorus and Dardanelles (1947), the US reacted quickly by passing an aid packet for Greece anf Turkey. <BR> Turkey had been neutral during the war and openly accepted US aid, as there was little sympathy for communism in the country. Yet in Greece communist partisans had liberated much of the country and still were in control of much of the countryside. The outbreak of Greece's CIVIL WAR (1947-1949) is, at least in part, caused by outside influence; the US and Britain massively supported the victorious democratic government. <BR> The introduction of a CURRENCY REFORM in the three western zones of occupied Germany including the western sectors of Berlin infuriated Stalin, as he had not been consulted (which he should have been); he ordered the BERLIN BLOCKADE (1948-1949) to which the western allies responded with the BERLIN AIRLIFT. In 1949 Stalin terminated the blockade; soon afterward the two German states - the FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY (west) and the GERMAN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC, were founded. <BR> The MARSHALL PLAN had caused a rift in the socialist block. Stalin had ordered his satellite governments to refuse Marshall aid; yet MARSHALL TITO accepted for Yugoslavia and broke with Stalin - during Greece's Civil War, Yugoslavia had, alongside the USSR, supported the communists. <BR> In 1949 NATO was founded, and the US signed treaties with Yugoslavia, Greece, Turkey, Iran and Pakistan, intended to contain the USSR. When the FRG announced its intention to reintroduce an army in 1955, the USSR offered German reunification under the condition of German political neutrality (as in the case of AUSTRIA, which was given its STAATSVERTRAG that year). The FRG government refused; the FRG joined NATO. In 1955, the WARSAW PACT was established, of which the GDR, now equally rearmed, became a founding member. <BR> Stalin had provided active support to communist North Korea, but when it launched its invasion of South Korea in 1950, the USSR formally remained neutral. Soviet strategists were very satisfied seeing the US involved in a war that resulted in a costly protracted stalemate (-1953). Once the Korean war had ended in an armistice, a new theater of operation emerged in Vietnam. US politicians established the DOMINO THEORY; the US gradually got more and more involved, again to the satisfaction of Soviet strategists. <BR> Meanwhile in Europe, the socialist satellite states, especially the GDR suffered from a massive outflow of workers - the Iron Curtain had a gap, people could freely cross from East Berlin into West Berlin. In 1961, the USSR handed its sector of the city over to GDR authorities (in violation of the 4 power agreement); immediately the BERLIN WALL was built. <BR><BR> Soviet military intervention against protest demonstrations of 'counterrevolutionaries' in East Germany in 1953, in Hungary in 1956, in Czechoslovakia in 1968 met, in the west, little more but protest and sympathy for the victims . Vice versa the Soviet block would, with justiication, criticize the Franco dictatorship in Spain, the military coup d'etat in Greece and Turkey. <BR> The next major event was the CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS of 1961. In Cuba, Fidel Castro had established a communist government in 1959; the USSR planned to establish Soviet missile bases on Cuba to counter US missiles stationed in Turkey etc., on the border of the USSR. US President Kennedy threatened with nuclear war; Khrushchev recalled the ship transporting the missiles. <BR><BR> In regard to the DECOLONIZATION, the USSR and the USA pursued rather a parallel policy - both the USSR and the USA recognized Israel in 1948, both the USSR and the USA spoke out against the Anglo-French-Israeli invasion of Egypt in response to the nationalization of the Suez Canal, both the USSR and the USA were in favour of the colonies in Africa and elsewhere to be released into independence. <BR><BR><BR> <TABLE border = "3" cellspace="5" cellpadding="5" align="center"> <TR> <TD width = "150" valign = "top" align = "center" bgcolor="#FFFACD"> <font size = "3" face = "Times Roman" color = "#000000"> EXTERNAL <BR> FILES </font></TD> <TD width = "550" valign = "top" align = "left" bgcolor = "#FFFACD"> <font size = "2" face = "Times Roman" color = "#000000"> </font></TD> </TR></TABLE> <TABLE border = "3" cellspace="5" cellpadding="5" align="center"> <TR> <TD width = "150" valign = "top" align = "center" bgcolor="#FFFACD"> <font size = "3" face = "Times Roman" color = "#000000"> DOCUMENTS </font></TD> <TD width = "700" valign = "top" align = "left" bgcolor = "#FFFACD"> <font size = "2" face = "Times Roman" color = "#000000"> Documents Relating to American Foreign Policy : The Cold War, from <A HREF = "http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/coldwar.htm"><B> Mt.Holyoke</B></A> <BR> Documents, from <A HREF = "http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~hpcws/documents.htm"><B>Harvard Project Cold War Studies</B></A>, mostly Soviet documents, few older than 1970 <BR> Document Archive of Declassified Files from the Cuban Missile Crisis, from <A HREF = "http://www.nsa.gov/docs/cuba/archive.htm"><B> Natinal Security Agency</B></A> (US) <BR> The Cominform Documents 1947-1949, posted <A HREF = "http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Atrium/1091/COMINFORM.html"><B> anonymously</B></A> in weird colours </font></TD> </TR></TABLE> <TABLE border = "3" cellspace="5" cellpadding="5" align="center"> <TR> <TD width = "150" valign = "top" align = "center" bgcolor="#FFFACD"> <font size = "2" face = "Times Roman" color = "#000000"> REFERENCE </font></TD> <TD width = "700" valign = "top" align = "left" bgcolor = "#FFFACD"> <font size = "2" face = "Times Roman" color = "#000000"> </font></TD> </TR></TABLE> <BR><BR><BR> <TABLE border="5" cellspace="10" cellpadding="10" align="center" bgcolor="#FFFFFF"><TR> <TD width="480" valign="top" align="center"> <font size = "3" face = "Times Roman" color = "#000000"><i>This page is part of <B>World History at KMLA</b></i></font><BR> <font size = "2" face = "Times Roman" color = "#000000"><i>First posted on July 7th 2001, last revised on November 14th 2004</i></font> <BR><BR> <font size = "2" face = "Times Roman"> Click here to go <A HREF = "../../index.html">Home</A> <BR> Click here to go to <A HREF = "../../about.html">Information about KMLA, WHKMLA, the author and webmaster</A> <BR> Click here to go to <A HREF = "../../links.html">Statistics</A><BR> </TD></TR></TABLE><BR><BR><BR> </DIV> <DIV align="center"> <A href="mailto:aganse@hotmail.com"> <IMG src="../../email.gif" border="0"></a><BR> <BR><BR><BR><BR><BR> <!-- Start of CH Counter --> <script type="text/javascript"> //<!-- // chCounter v2.0.0 // settings: cstatus = "active"; visible = "0"; path_to_counterfile = "http://www.zum.de/whkmla/counter/counter.php"; urlhp = "http://www.zum.de"; //////////////// url = unescape(location.href); file = url.substring(url.lastIndexOf(urlhp) + urlhp.length, url.length); file = (file.charAt(0) != "/") ? 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