Book Review of
Cold War Berlin: an Island City
Vol. 1: The Birth of the Cold War & the Berlin Airlift 1945-1950
Author: Andrew Long
Helion & Co. Europe@War Series No. 9
ISBN: 978-1-914059-03-2
ISBN: 978-1-914059-03-2
By Ray Mehlberger
Copyright 2021
MSRP: $21.95
Copyright 2021
MSRP: $21.95
At the end of WWII, the city of Berlin was located 100 miles (160 km) inside the Soviet Occupation Zone of Germany. The Western Allies instead of keeping part of the city for themselves, and so it was divided into four sectors, mimicking the rest of Germany.
Stalin needed to persuade the British, French and Americans to leave so that there would be nothing in the way of him completing the strategic buffer of territory reaching form the Baltic Sea to the Adriatic, which Churchill would later christen “The Iron Curtain”.
Vol. 1 of Cold War Berlin: An Island City is the story of how Stalin imposed his iron will over Eastern Germany, and how he tried to squeeze his former allies out by cutting off their lines of supply and blockading the city. It examines the logistical miracle of the Berlin Airlift, which fed and heated the city of over 2 million people for almost 11 months.
It is the story of alliances forged in the uncertainty of conflict , based on common interests and pragmatic convenience alliances that would shape the 20th Century, but would be betrayed for strategic and political reasons. It is also the tale of how competing ideologies came face to face in the city of Berlin and the new “Cold War” that would come to dominate the second half of the 20th Century was created out of the ember of the Second World War.
The book is richly illustrated with 94 black and white photos and 12 color side profiles, 10 maps (3 in color) and is the first in a mini-series by this author for Helion’s Europe@War series on Cold War Berlin.
THE BOOK:
Helion & Co. is based in the UK.
The book is soft-cover of 90 pages in 8 ¼” x 11 ¾” page format.
Two pages are blank.
The cover art shows a black and white photo of six C-47 transport aircraft parked on a runway, that are being loaded with supplies.
At the bottom of the cover there is a color side profile of a Avro York.
The back cover shows a color side profile of a C-47 that is overall bare metal with CAMEL CARAVAN TO BERLIN over an illustration of a camel down its side with 5 star with bars. Serial no. 293087 on its rudder.
Black and white photos include:
Photos of Stalin & Lenin, Molotov signing the peace treaty with Germany in 1939, British sailors, Tommy guns, P-51’s aboard a cargo ship, Churchill, Truman and Stalin 3 times, officials at the surrender of Germany, the Brandenburg Gate in 1945, Wilhelm Pieck, emergency food distributors, German police rounding up black marketers, Soviet policemen, 7 photos of wrecked German buildings, the San Francisco Conference, 2 photos of the Soviet Great Patriotic War Memorial, a M-8 Greyhound armored car, a Sherman tank, a Jeep, British armored vehicles on parade, U.S. C-54’s, Churchill inspecting troops, General Eisenhower, General Patton, Clement Attlee, Cecilienhof Palace, Potsdam Conference, the Trinity A-bomb explosion, East German leaders, a wood tank, German leaders, SED emblem, a radio broadcasting studio, E. German police arresting a photographer, parade honoring Stalin, FDJ badge, 3 photos of KVP police, 4 photos of M-20 armored cars, 2 photos of U.S. M.P.’s, General Clay and 2 photos of a farm tractor.
The color profiles include:
Three profiles of the Douglas C-37 Dakota.
A Short Sunderland Flying boat.
An Avro York (the cover art)
A Bristol 170.
Two profiles of an Avro 189 Tudor Series.
An Avro 581 Lancastrian.
A Handley-Page Halifax.
A C-54 Skymaster.
A C-82 Packet.
Color illustrations of a U.S., German and British policeman and a R.A.F. pilot, including 4 uniform badges.
This book will be of great interest to modelers planning to build any of the aircraft types shown and to aviation historians alike.
I want to sincerely thank Casemate Publishers, the N. American distributor for Helion & Co. books for this review sample. All Helion titles can be viewed on Casemate’s web-site at:
Stalin needed to persuade the British, French and Americans to leave so that there would be nothing in the way of him completing the strategic buffer of territory reaching form the Baltic Sea to the Adriatic, which Churchill would later christen “The Iron Curtain”.
Vol. 1 of Cold War Berlin: An Island City is the story of how Stalin imposed his iron will over Eastern Germany, and how he tried to squeeze his former allies out by cutting off their lines of supply and blockading the city. It examines the logistical miracle of the Berlin Airlift, which fed and heated the city of over 2 million people for almost 11 months.
It is the story of alliances forged in the uncertainty of conflict , based on common interests and pragmatic convenience alliances that would shape the 20th Century, but would be betrayed for strategic and political reasons. It is also the tale of how competing ideologies came face to face in the city of Berlin and the new “Cold War” that would come to dominate the second half of the 20th Century was created out of the ember of the Second World War.
The book is richly illustrated with 94 black and white photos and 12 color side profiles, 10 maps (3 in color) and is the first in a mini-series by this author for Helion’s Europe@War series on Cold War Berlin.
THE BOOK:
Helion & Co. is based in the UK.
The book is soft-cover of 90 pages in 8 ¼” x 11 ¾” page format.
Two pages are blank.
The cover art shows a black and white photo of six C-47 transport aircraft parked on a runway, that are being loaded with supplies.
At the bottom of the cover there is a color side profile of a Avro York.
The back cover shows a color side profile of a C-47 that is overall bare metal with CAMEL CARAVAN TO BERLIN over an illustration of a camel down its side with 5 star with bars. Serial no. 293087 on its rudder.
Black and white photos include:
Photos of Stalin & Lenin, Molotov signing the peace treaty with Germany in 1939, British sailors, Tommy guns, P-51’s aboard a cargo ship, Churchill, Truman and Stalin 3 times, officials at the surrender of Germany, the Brandenburg Gate in 1945, Wilhelm Pieck, emergency food distributors, German police rounding up black marketers, Soviet policemen, 7 photos of wrecked German buildings, the San Francisco Conference, 2 photos of the Soviet Great Patriotic War Memorial, a M-8 Greyhound armored car, a Sherman tank, a Jeep, British armored vehicles on parade, U.S. C-54’s, Churchill inspecting troops, General Eisenhower, General Patton, Clement Attlee, Cecilienhof Palace, Potsdam Conference, the Trinity A-bomb explosion, East German leaders, a wood tank, German leaders, SED emblem, a radio broadcasting studio, E. German police arresting a photographer, parade honoring Stalin, FDJ badge, 3 photos of KVP police, 4 photos of M-20 armored cars, 2 photos of U.S. M.P.’s, General Clay and 2 photos of a farm tractor.
The color profiles include:
Three profiles of the Douglas C-37 Dakota.
A Short Sunderland Flying boat.
An Avro York (the cover art)
A Bristol 170.
Two profiles of an Avro 189 Tudor Series.
An Avro 581 Lancastrian.
A Handley-Page Halifax.
A C-54 Skymaster.
A C-82 Packet.
Color illustrations of a U.S., German and British policeman and a R.A.F. pilot, including 4 uniform badges.
This book will be of great interest to modelers planning to build any of the aircraft types shown and to aviation historians alike.
I want to sincerely thank Casemate Publishers, the N. American distributor for Helion & Co. books for this review sample. All Helion titles can be viewed on Casemate’s web-site at:
Highly Recommended.