Giles Milton - Checkmate in Berlin: The Cold War Showdown That Shaped the Modern World

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For George

If we lose Berlin, we may as well kiss
Germany and Western Europe goodbye.

COLONEL FRANK HOWLEY, COMMANDANT,
American Sector, Berlin

I dont like the expression Cold War.
This war is hot as hell.

GENERAL WILLIAM DONOVAN,
Director of Americas Office of Strategic Services

One foot wrong now and its World War Three.

GENERAL SIR BRIAN ROBERTSON,
Deputy Military Governor,
British Occupation Zone, Germany

FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT

Thirty-second president of the United States (1933April 1945) and one of the Big Three wartime leaders, along with Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin.

HARRY S. TRUMAN

Thirty-third president of the United States (April 19451953). Overseer of a major shift in American foreign policy that led to the postwar Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plan.

GEN. LUCIUS D. CLAY

Military governor of the American zone of occupation (19471949), serving on the Allied Control Council. Previously served as deputy military governor.

COL. FRANK HOWLIN MAD HOWLEY

Commandant of the American sector of Berlin (19471949); previously served as deputy commandant. Leading American representative on Berlin Kommandatura.

GEORGE KENNAN

Distinguished American diplomat who urged a policy of containment against Soviet expansion. Author of the famous 1946 Long Telegram.

GEN. WILLIAM H. TONNAGE TUNNER

Commander of the Berlin Airlift (19481949).

WINSTON CHURCHILL

British prime minister (May 1940July 1945); Britains principal representative at both the Yalta and Potsdam Conferences. Delivered his Iron Curtain speech in March 1946.

ERNEST BEVIN

British foreign secretary (July 19451951) serving in Clement Attlees postwar Labour government. An architect of both NATO and the Federal Republic of Germany.

GEN. SIR BRIAN ROBERTSON

Military governor of the British zone of occupation (19481950) serving on Allied Control Council. Previously deputy military governor.

BRIG. ROBERT LOONEY HINDE

Deputy director of British Military Government, Berlin (19451948). Leading British representative on Berlin Kommandatura.

LT.-COL. HAROLD TIM HAYS

An early recruit to Military Government, Greater Berlin Area (19451951). Author of the unpublished memoir Nach Berlin (To Berlin).

JOSEPH STALIN

Marshal of the Soviet Union and one of the Big Three wartime leaders. He pursued a postwar policy of aggressive Soviet expansion in Eastern and Central Europe.

VYACHESLAV MOLOTOV

Stalins minister of foreign affairs (19391949) and the key Soviet negotiator at both the Yalta and Potsdam Conferences.

MARSHAL GEORGY ZHUKOV

Leading Red Army commander in the 1945 Battle of Berlin and first commander of Soviet-occupied Germany.

GEN. NIKOLAI BERZARIN

First Soviet commander of Berlin (1945).

COL. SERGEI TIULPANOV

Head of the Soviet Military Administrations Propaganda Administration (19451948).

GEN. ALEXANDER KOTIKOV

Commandant of the Soviet sector of Berlin (19461950). Leading Soviet representative on Berlin Kommandatura.

WALTER ULBRICHT

German Communist leader who returned to Berlin from Moscow in 1945. Helped found the Socialist Unity Party and later became leader of German Democratic Republic (East Germany).

WILHELM PIECK

Leader of German Communist Party who spent his wartime in exile in Moscow. Later served as president of German Democratic Republic (East Germany; 19491960).

OTTO GROTEWOHL

Leading member of the Social Democratic Party; promoted the partys merger with the Communist Party, thereby creating the Socialist Unity Party. Later served as the de facto head of German Democratic Republic (East Germany).

RUTH ANDREAS-FRIEDRICH

Berlin-based journalist and member (together with her companion Leo Borchard) of the Uncle Emil anti-Nazi resistance movement. Diarist and author of Berlin Underground, 19381945, and Battleground Berlin: Diaries, 19451948.

ERNST REUTER

Vigorously pro-Western mayor of Berlin (19471953) and symbol of free Berlin. Celebrated for his rousing 1948 speech pleading with the world not to abandon Berlin.

WILHELM FURTWNGLER

Principal conductor of Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra (19221945 and 19521954). His return to Berlin in 1946 would expose wide differences in the Soviet and Western approaches to denazification.

GEN. MARIE-PIERRE KOENIG

Commander of French forces in the French zone of occupation. Served on Allied Control Council.

GEN. CHARLES LANON

Commandant of French sector of Berlin (MarchOctober 1946). French representative on Berlin Kommandatura.

GEN. JEAN GANEVAL

Commandant of French sector of Berlin (19461950). French representative on Berlin Kommandatura.

CRIMEA, FEBRUARY 1945.

TWILIGHT ARRIVED EARLY in the Crimean mountains, with dusk falling at four thirty and darkness shortly after. A lone road crossed this gloomy terrain, one whose high-altitude switchbacks made for a forbidding drive in the glacial depths of winter. In such a season, and at such an hour, the Route Romanov was normally deserted.

But this was no normal day. On the afternoon of Saturday, February 3, 1945, the alpine twilight was pierced by the shrill glare of carbide headlamps. Two Packard limousines were grinding their way around the precipitous flank of the Roman-Kosh massif, the vanguard of a snaking column of jeeps and trucks that stretched for more than a dozen miles to the rear. Inside the two lead vehicles sat Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston ChurchillAmerican president and British prime ministeren route to the Crimean resort city of Yalta. Here, they were to meet with their wartime ally Joseph Stalin.

The Big Three leaders held the worlds fate in their hands in that final winter of war, masters of a rapidly advancing front line that stretched from the coast of Brittany to the shores of the Black Sea. Now, at Yalta, they were hoping to thrash out a new global order. Under a bruised February sky, they were to be the architects of a whole new world, reshaping it in their collective image. Nazi Germany was to be dismembered, along with its shattered imperial capital, and the frontiers of Europe redrawn. Never before in history had the spoils of war been subject to such scrutiny or laced with such brooding drama.