Armageddon, or Armageddon: A Novel of Berlin, is a 1963 novel by Leon Uris about post-World War IIBerlin and Germany. The novel starts in London during World War II, and goes through to the Four Power occupation of Berlin and the Soviet blockade by land of the city's western boroughs. The description of the Berlin Airlift is quite vivid as is the inter-action between people of the five nations involved as the three major Western Allies rub along with the Soviet occupiers of East Berlin and East Germany. The book finishes with the end of the airlift but sets the scene for the following 40 years of Cold War.
The book explains some important consequences of defeating Nazi Germany:
Division of territory into four zones of occupation including the last minute trading of Saxony and Thuringia by the Western Allies in return for a presence in Berlin (again in four sectors) at the heart of what had been the Third Reich.
How relationships between British, American, French and Russian individuals at a personal, a military and a political level developed and with Germans at a personal and political level, while De-Nazifying Germans and identifying likely leaders to play their part in the re-building of the city of Berlin from the ruins.
The effects of the Soviet Blockade of Berlin and the measures taken by US, British and French governments to supply West Berlin from the air. Specific air corridor and flight safety guarantee arrangements from the 1940s were still in place for every western civil flight in & out of Berlin until the early 1990s.
Characters
Sean O'Sullivan
Sean O'Sullivan, initially a Captain, finally a Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Army, is one of the main characters in the novel. Posted to G-5, the newly formed US military government, he bears an intensive hatred for the Nazis and wider Germans, as his brothers, Liam and Tim, were killed in action during World War Two. Despite his hatred, he is posted as a military governor to a fictional German region, Romabaden, likely part of Bavaria. After serving as governor, he is asked to accompany his superior General Hansen to Berlin though he wishes to complete his studies and become a professor. Following General Hansen, he finds himself working with the Germans there and meets Ernestine Falkstein, niece of the opposing politicians towards Hitler[clarification needed]. O'Sullivan is initially icy towards Ernestine due to his hatred of the Nazis though eventually dates her. Towards the end of the novel, it is revealed Ernestine's father Bruno worked for the Nazis and used slave labor and O'Sullivan covered that up, shattering their relationship. O'Sullivan also meets his Soviet counterpart, Igor Karlovy. Initially rivals, they develop a close friendship. Towards the end, O'Sullivan aids Igor to get his mistress over to West Berlin. O'Sullivan finally leaves Berlin, guilty he covered up for Ernestine's father and his friend Dante Arosa, who broke a non-fraternization rule.
The Cold War (1948–1953) is the period within the Cold War from the incapacitation of the Allied Control Council in 1948 to the conclusion of the Korean War in 1953.
West Germany is the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) from its formation on 23 May 1949 until the reunification with East Germany on 3 October 1990. During the Cold War, the western portion of Germany and the associated territory of West Berlin were parts of the Western Bloc. West Germany was formed as a political entity during the Allied occupation of Germany after World War II, established from 12 states formed in the three Allied zones of occupation held by the United States, the United Kingdom, and France. The capital was the city of Bonn, hence the Cold War-era country is sometimes known as the Bonn Republic.
West Berlin was a political enclave which comprised the western part of Berlin from 1948 until 1990, during the Cold War. Although West Berlin lacked any sovereignty and was under military occupation until German reunification in 1990, the territory was claimed by the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), despite being entirely surrounded by East Germany (GDR). The legality of this claim was contested by the Soviet Union and other Eastern Bloc countries. However, West Berlin de facto aligned itself politically with the FRG from May 1949 and was thereafter treated as a de facto city-state of that country. After 1949, it was directly or indirectly represented in the institutions of the FRG, and most of its residents were citizens of the FRG.
Werwolf was a Nazi plan which began development in 1944, to create a resistance force which would operate behind enemy lines as the Allies advanced through Germany in parallel with the Wehrmacht fighting in front of the lines. There is some argument that the plan, and subsequent reports of guerrilla activities, were created by Joseph Goebbels through propaganda disseminated in the waning weeks of the war through his "Radio Werwolf", something that was not connected in any way with the military unit.
The history of Germany from 1945 to 1990 comprises the period following World War II. The period began with the Berlin Declaration, marking the abolition of the German Reich and Allied-occupied period in Germany on 5 June 1945, and ended with the German reunification on 3 October 1990.
Lucius Dubignon Clay was a senior officer of the United States Army who was known for his administration of occupied Germany after World War II. He served as the deputy to General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1945; deputy military governor, Germany, in 1946; Commander in Chief, United States Forces in Europe and military governor of the United States Zone, Germany, from 1947 to 1949. Clay orchestrated the Berlin Airlift (1948–1949) when the USSR blockaded West Berlin.
Royal Air Force Gatow, or more commonly RAF Gatow, was a British Royal Air Force station in the district of Gatow in south-western Berlin, west of the Havel river, in the borough of Spandau. It was the home for the only known operational use of flying boats in central Europe, and was later used for photographic reconnaissance missions by de Havilland Canada DHC-1 Chipmunks over East Germany. Part of the former airfield is now called General Steinhoff-Kaserne, and is home to the Luftwaffenmuseum der Bundeswehr, the German Air Force Museum.
The German Instrument of Surrender was a legal document effecting the unconditional surrender of the remaining German armed forces to the Allies, which ended World War II in Europe, with the surrender taking effect at 23:01 CET on the same day.
Rhein-Main Air Base was a United States Air Force air base near the city of Frankfurt am Main, Germany. It was a Military Airlift Command (MAC) and United States Air Forces in Europe (USAFE) installation, occupying the south side of Frankfurt Airport. Its military airport codes are discontinued. Established in 1945, Rhein-Main Air Base was the primary airlift and passenger hub for USAFE. It was billed as the "Gateway to Europe". It closed on 30 December 2005.
The entirety of Germany was occupied and administered by the Allies of World War II from the Berlin Declaration on 5 June 1945 to the establishment of West Germany on 23 May 1949. Unlike occupied Japan, Germany was stripped of its sovereignty and former state: after Nazi Germany surrendered on 8 May 1945, four countries representing the Allies asserted joint authority and sovereignty through the Allied Control Council (ACC). At first, Allied-occupied Germany was defined as all territories of Germany before the 1938 Nazi annexation of Austria; the Potsdam Agreement on 2 August 1945 defined the new eastern German border by giving Poland and the Soviet Union all regions of Germany east of the Oder–Neisse line and divided the remaining "Germany as a whole" into four occupation zones, each administered by one of the Allies.
An airlift is the organized delivery of supplies or personnel primarily via military transport aircraft.
The Berlin Airlift Squadron was a Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) transport squadron formed to participate in the Berlin Airlift. The unit operated for one year, between August 1948 and August 1949, and was raised specifically for the operation, drawing crews from two existing RAAF transport squadrons. It flew more than 2,000 sorties during the airlift, without loss.
The Big Lift is a 1950 American drama war film on location in the city of Berlin, Germany, that tells the story of "Operation Vittles", the 1948–49 Berlin Airlift, through the experiences of two U.S. Air Force sergeants.
The Berlin Declaration of 5 June 1945 or the Declaration regarding the defeat of Germany, had the governments of the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and France, acting on behalf of the Allies of World War II, jointly assume de jure "supreme authority" over Germany after its military defeat and asserted the legitimacy of their joint determination of issues regarding its administration and boundaries prior to the forthcoming Potsdam Conference.
Ferdinand Friedensburg was the interim Mayor of Berlin due to the illness of mayor Louise Schroeder during the Berlin Blockade in 1948.
The Berlin Blockade was one of the first major international crises of the Cold War. During the multinational occupation of post–World War II Germany, the Soviet Union blocked the Western Allies' railway, road, and canal access to the sectors of Berlin under Western control. The Soviets offered to drop the blockade if the Western Allies withdrew the newly introduced Deutsche Mark from West Berlin.
The Allied Museum is a museum in Berlin. It documents the political history and the military commitments and roles of the Western Allies in Germany – particularly Berlin – between 1945 and 1994 and their contribution to liberty in Berlin during the Cold War era.
The Warsaw airlift or Warsaw air bridge was a British-led operation to re-supply the besieged Polish resistance Home Army (AK) in the Warsaw Uprising against Nazi Germany during the Second World War, after nearby Soviet forces chose not to come to its aid. It took place between 4 August and 28 September 1944 and was conducted by Polish, British, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand and South African airmen flying from Celone and Brindisi in Italy and was denied flyover rights from their Soviet allies, who shot at them when the planes entered Soviet airspace. On 18 September, in the final stages of the Nazis crushing the uprising, one United States airdrop was launched from Great Britain and landed at Poltava in Soviet Ukraine as the distance to the drop-zone precluded the aircraft returning to base. The flights from Italy were night operations with low level cargo drops, conducted without fighter escort while the single United States Army Air Forces mission of 18 September 1944 was a high-altitude, daylight operation consisting of 107 B-17s protected by P-51 fighters. From the night of 13/14 September, Soviet aircraft flew some supply drops, dropping about 130 tons in total until 27/28 September. Initially, this cargo was dropped without parachutes, resulting in much of the payload being damaged or destroyed.
Frank Leo "Howlin'" Howley was a United States Army brigadier general and subsequently an administrator at New York University. Howley served as commandant of the American sector of Berlin after World War II, when the city was broken and in dire need of being restored. He became known as Howlin' Howley because of his interminable and intractable interactions with the Soviets.
The Allied Kommandatura, or often just Kommandatura, also known as the Alliierte Kommandantur in German, was the governing body for the city of Berlin following Germany's defeat in World War II. The victorious allied powers established control of post-war Germany and other territories via shared Military Government councils, including for Berlin. The Kommandatura was often known as the little brother to the Allied Control Council, which had the same function for the whole of Germany, and was subordinate to it. It originally comprised representatives from the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union but later included France. The Kommandatura had its home in the Berlin district of Dahlem.
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