Postwar Berlin: Divided City

Type:

Book Chapter

Author:

Richard L. Merritt

Published:

2019

Publisher:

Routledge

A Soviet-American agreement in May 1949 ended the blockade and counterblockade. It failed, however, to resolve the underlying issues spawned by the cold war, and left Berlin a divided city. This chapter addresses how Berliners and their governments learned to cope with their divided city. The focus is less on high-level diplomacy and intergovernmental relations than on the people living in the city. After surveying the political development of Berlin since 1945, the chapter looks at infrastructural, organizational, and behavioral changes in the city before turning to the question of the future of divided Berlin. These include municipal utilities, shift of Berlin's central business district, retaining of the Social Democratic party and the Protestant and Catholic churches across the territories of the two Berlins, and the interpersonal contacts between East and West Berliners.

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