The Berlin Airlift Memorial at Tempelhof Airport was dedicated in 1951 to honor those man and women who lost their lives in the Berlin Airlift. The 65-foot-tall concrete sculpture is shaped like an arched fork with three prongs at the top. Each prong symbolizes an air corridor used by Allied planes to airlift food, fuel and medicine from West Germany to West Berlin during the Berlin Blockade of 1948/49. http://walled-in-berlin.com/j-elke-ertle/berlin-blockade-and-the-cold-war/The three prongs face west toward the former American, British and French occupation zones. Every year a wreath is laid down at the Berlin Airlift Memorial, which Berliners lovingly call the Hungerkralle (hunger claw). Two similar, but smaller, memorials were erected near the former West German air bases in Frankfurt Main (1985) and Celle (1988). Their prongs face toward Berlin.
Berlin Airlift Memorial at Berlin’s Tempelhof Airport. The inscription at its base reads “They gave their lives for the freedom of Berlin in service of the Berlin Airlift 1948/49”, photo © J. Elke Ertle, 2015, www.walled-in-berlin.com
Why the Berlin Airlift?
In 1948/49, when the Soviet Union blocked all roads and waterways to West Berlin in order to starve the city, Tempelhof Airport became the city’s lifeline. Allied planes supplied the city for a period of 11 months with food, fuel, and everything else that was necessary for daily life. Planes landed every few minutes. http://walled-in-berlin.com/j-elke-ertle/berlin-airlift-unprecedented-feat/
Berlin Airlift Fatalities
As much as the Berlin Airlift was a feat of logistics, accidents did happen. There were 101 fatalities, which included 39 British and 31 American servicemen. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92597573
Most of the accidents resulted from hazardous weather conditions or mechanical failures. The remaining fatalities were comprised of civilians who perished on the ground during operational support or lost their lives when aircraft accidents destroyed their homes. Seventeen American and eight British aircraft crashed during the Berlin Airlift. Commemorating those men and women who lost their lives due to the airlift, an inscription at the foot of the Berlin Airlift Memorial reads, “They gave their lives for the freedom of Berlin in service of the Berlin Airlift 1948/1949.”
For a sneak peek at the first 20+ pages of my memoir, Walled-In: A West Berlin Girl’s Journey to Freedom, click “Download a free excerpt” on my home page and feel free to follow my blog about anything German: historic and current events, people, places and food.
Walled-In is my story of growing up in Berlin during the Cold War. Juxtaposing the events that engulfed Berlin during the Berlin Blockade, the Berlin Airlift, the Berlin Wall and Kennedy’s Berlin visit with the struggle against my equally insurmountable parental walls, Walled-In is about freedom vs. conformity, conflict vs. harmony, domination vs. submission, loyalty vs. betrayal.
