The
End Of The Second World War Quickly Transformed Into
The Cold War.
The 1st Battalion remained in Germany after the War
as part of the allied Army of Occupation, which became
British Army on the Rhine (BOAR). The division of Europe
between East and West made Germany the centre of Army
commitments over the next 40 years.
The Berlin Airlift
The 1st Bn was stationed in Berlin throughout the Berlin
Blockade and Airlift.
In June 1948 the Soviet Union blocked rail and road
access to the Western sectors of Berlin in a bid to
force the western sector into its zone of control.
An unprecedented airlift of supplies of fuel and food
for the whole population was mounted and by the spring
of 1949 the effort was clearly succeeding. By April
the airlift was delivering more cargo than had previously
flowed into the city via rail. The USSR lifted the
blockade in May. One lasting legacy of the Airlift
is the three airports in the former western zones of
the city, which served as the primary gateways to Berlin
for another fifty years.
MAP
As the capital city of Germany, Berlin is one of the
sixteen states. After World War Two, the city became
divided and East Berlin became the capital of East
Germany, whereas West Berlin became an exclave which
was surrounded by the Berlin Wall, built in 1961 and
only destroyed in 1989. It was only after the reunification
of the city in 1990 that it regained its capital status.
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