Huge buildings and skyscrapers seen in restored postwar West Berlin, Germany. A street sign reads 'John-Foster-Dulles-Allee'. Pedestrians and traffic on busy streets. Preserved bombed-out Kaiser Wilhelm Gedächtniskirche (Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, Breitscheidplatz, 10789 Berlin, Germany), Berlin. A car entering a parking multi-story car park. U.S. Army Soldiers seen shopping. People shopping at Kaufhaus des Westens (KaDeWe, Tauentzienstraße 21-24, 10789 Berlin, Germany). Some shops names read 'Peek & Coppenberg', 'Kaffee Hag' and 'Odol'.
Guards of the crown prince of Prussia assembling in front of the New Guard House (Neue Wache, Unter den Linden 4, 10117 Berlin, Germany), on Unter den Linden in Berlin, Germany. Closeup of them in formation presenting arms. Street filled with people in an informal parade. View of horse-drawn vehicle traffic passing the Lustgarten fountain, with Old Museum building (Altes Museum, Bodestraße 1-3, 10178 Berlin, Germany) in background. The Reichstag building on Königsplatz (Platz der Republik 1 11011 Berlin Mitte). Continuous heavy vehicle and pedestrian traffic. A disabled horse-drawn wagon with broken wheel. Fire department responding to an alarm. They open several doors at front of the firehouse and pull fire engines out to hook them to horses. Next, they are seen riding on fire engines, each pulled by a pair of horses. Abrupt change of scene to costumed performer on stage singing a German song.
United States President Harry S. Truman visits Berlin for the Potsdam Conference at the end of World War 2 in Europe. President Truman, Admiral William D. Leahy, Secretary of State James F. Byrnes, sit in open car to view Berlin in ruins. Berlin buildings and façade are destroyed from heavy bombing. Ruins of the Reich Chancellery (Wilhelmstraße 77 10117 Berlin Germany) is seen. President Truman’s car passes by the Berlin Victory Column or Siegessäule (Großer Stern, 10557 Berlin, Germany). Closer view of the Berlin Victory Column, featuring the Victoria statue on top. Large portraits of President Truman, Russian Premier Joseph Stalin and Prime Minister Winston Churchill on a Russian reviewing stand on Berlin’s Unter den Linden Avenue. President Truman’s convoy approaches the Brandenburg Gate (Brandenburger Tor Pariser Platz, 10117 Berlin, Germany), damaged by heavy bombing. Cars driving on the Unter den Linden Avenue. The Berliner Schloss (Schloßpl. 1, 10178 Berlin, Germany) with significant damage. The Secret Service stand on running boards of President Truman's car. President Truman greets a man from his car. President Truman, Admiral Leahy and Secretary of State Byrnes talking. A huge pile of rubble stands in front of a damaged building. Crowds of men and soldiers surround President Truman and his car. Soldiers with cameras take photographs. Secret Service men running alongside President Truman’s car. President Truman’s car passes by a Nazi-style building, driving into the Autobahn. A Military Police vehicle, which acts as guard, follows behind President Truman's car heading to Potsdam.
Filmed shortly before the Potsdam Conference in Berlin, Germany. A view of the devastated city of Berlin shortly after the end of World War 2 in Europe. Aerial views of bomb damaged Berlin and point of view shots from a moving car passing destruction, rubble, and skeletons of buildings from bomb damage. U.S. President Harry Truman surveying the damage from an open car, and view of his car approaching the Brandenburg Gate and driving on the Unter den Linden. Three flag towers each decorated at the base with an image of Truman, Stalin, and Churchill. U.S. President Harry S. Truman is riding through Berlin with General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Joseph Stalin and Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov. Flashback shows German Fuhrer Adolf Hitler parading in Berlin. People crowd on either side of a street to cheer. Close up back and side profile view of Hitler as he stands in a moving car waving to the crowd. Hitler speaking at a Nazi Rally, forcefully and animated, about Germany wiping out inferior races, and decrying America's society of mixed people, saying that it has a ridiculous notion of equality and freedom that cannot stand up against Germany. The German people in the hall applaud. Truman speaks into a microphone in Germany after the war. U.S. delegates stand in the background. A radio tower. A U.S. military serviceman operating controls for the radio broadcast. People in the U.S. listen to President Truman speaking from a Berlin Radio Station. A hand on a typewriter. People of the United States in groups listening to radio: Men gathered at a city store listening to the radio speech; a woman typist listening to the radio beside her typewriter; men in a rural general store gathered around a radio near a wood stove; farmers listening to a radio; office workers gathered around a radio; a family in a living room listens to the radio; group of U.S. Army soldiers gathered to listen to the radio . Truman speaking on the grounds of the United States Group Control Council Headquarters in Berlin. He is in a courtyard that had been the home of the German Air Defense for Berlin. An honor guard from Company 'E' of the 41st Infantry is present, along with Secretary Stimpson, Assistant Secretary McCloy, and Generals Eisenhower, Patton, Clay, and Bradley. Soldiers stand in formation in the background. He speaks about peace in the world during the ceremony raising the United States flag over the U.S. controlled area of Berlin. His words included the statement, "Let's not forget that we are fighting for peace and for the welfare of mankind. We're not fighting for conquest."
Fall of Berlin, Germany, during Battle of Berlin in World War 2. Russian Army soldiers attack. Russian soldiers fire artillery and run through the streets of Berlin. German civilians are instructed to clean up the streets by the Soviet Army. Rubble on the street. Flames and smoke rise from buildings. Destroyed airplanes are shown in a burning field. A German pilot prisoner. Past events show Hermann Goering and Benito Mussolini greeted by Adolf Hitler. (World War II period).
Film begins showing ruins of the Bundestag in Berlin, in June, 1948. A tram rides along a street headed toward a tunnel through a destroyed building. Berliners walk about and eat at outdoor tables, enjoying the pleasant weather. On June 26, 1948, the Soviets established a blockade of West Berlin. View of Soviet soldiers in a line at a square in the city. A manufacturing business is seen being adversely affected by the blockade through denial of coal to generate electricity for it. The employees cover the company's equipment and close the business. People jam a corner store fearing a food shortage. Crowds mingle outside the main buildings of the Templehof airdrome. Some men hold a German newspaper announcing Allied intent to supply West Berlin by air. View of an American Army Air Forces C-47 transport plane landing at Templehof. A number of C-47s lined in a circle at the airport field as large trucks offload their cargoes. C-47 taxiing into position. German men climb aboard an open bus to start work at jobs unloading supplies from the aircraft. Views of the men busy with their labors. Glimpse of a "follow me" jeep leading a just landed aircraft to its parking place at night. Images of the workers dimly seen in the semi dark. View of the circular Templehof buildings. A truckload of German workers being carried to their work places. American pilots entering Base operations at Temlehof. Pilots inside Base operations, taking a break while their C-47 is being unloaded. They head out to their airplane to fly back to Frankfurt, Germany for another load of cargo. The climb aboard through the plane's side door. View of C-47 flying with clouds in the background along the Berlin Corridor. Ambulance seen responding to an Airlift aircraft crash. View of aircraft wreckage in a city. It is up side down with landing gear pointing skyward. The wreckage being carted away on a flat bed truck. German citizens gathered in front of a memorial plaque they had put in place. An Army Air Forces Lieutenant and another C-47 pilot look up as the board their plane to watch a four engine C54 transport plane coming in to land. Several views of C-54 transport aircraft in flight overhead. Airlift pilots are seen in a briefing room. Animated map shows Berlin as an "island" in the Soviet zone of occupation, accessible only by three 20mile wide air corridors. Several air bases in the Western zones are shown. Map shows Berlin's three airfields, Templehof, Tegel, and Gatow in the Western sectors, surrounded by a ring of Soviet fields. A line of American C-47s is shown on the map, flying from Wiesbaden airdrome, along a corridor to Berlin, from 9:30 AM until 11:30 AM. At 12:00 Noon the C-54s began flying from Rhein Main air base. At 3:00 PM the C-54s stopped and the C-47s began again. Illustration shows how the aircraft were separated by three minute intervals and a thousand feet in altitude. Closeup of a C-54 pilot in his cockpit as he starts his engines. The plane has "The Air Transport Command" written on its side. Inside the C-54 the flight engineer is seen at his panel performing engine start at the direction of the Aircraft Commander Pilot. View of the pilot in the cockpit and his instrument panel. The aircraft taking off. Views of cargo handling on the ground. Trucks carrying the cargoes to places they are needed in the city. Bread being baked for Berliners. Coal being unloaded from rail cars after being flown into the city, A crane operates in a Western sector coal yard. Smoke rising from some of the restarted factories. German employees punch a time clock. Doctors examine school age children. View of street cars operating on power generated by burning coal. Commercial vehicles operating on airlifted gasoline. Darkness due to power saving at night. But people arriving in the city by subway in the morning. Glimpse of C-54 overhead. Food being prepared and sold in shops. People patronizing a news stand. The damaged Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, with C-54 in flight in far distant background. German workers sweeping the airfield ramp. An officer from Base operations arrives in a jeep to debrief a C-54 crew as a truckload of German workers pulls up to begin unloading their cargo. Crew members get food from a mobile snack bar the meets their airplane. A German worker who knew a pilot gives him a gift of a wind up musical Steiff bear for his child. The two pilots begin dancing to the toy bear's tune. The pilot places the toy bear next to the window in his cockpit. Back home, near Frankfurt, the pilot greets his wife, baby and school age daughter, whom he gives the toy bear. The next day, the pilot walks to the rear of his aircraft while en route to Berlin. He throws little parachutes of candy out a window for the children of Berlin below. Views of the parachutes descending and children rushing to retrieve and unwrap them.