Berlin cops put on a show in Berlin. View of a stadium filled with 100,000 spectators. President Kennedy's mother Elizabeth Kennedy is the Guest of Honor for the Show. Policemen standing in formation. Close view of Elizabeth Kennedy. Policemen showing several stunts. Policemen on motorcycle trying to greet Elizabeth Kennedy. Police dogs playing soccer.
Teacher and school children playing amid rubble in Berlin, in the aftermath of World War II. Children receiving food outdoors. Children in a school classroom being given cups of soup by their teacher. In March, 1948, a Soviet soldier is seen lowering their flag from one of four flag poles displaying it, along with flags of the British, American, and French flags. (They no longer wished to share occupation of Berlin with the other Allied powers.) View of Western representatives preparing to issue a new stable currency. Next, the Soviets block all access to West Berlin (the "Berlin Blockade.") Open rail cars filled with coal are brought to a halt in their tracks. Trucks servicing West Berlin are stopped from moving over a highway. West Berlin citizens stand at a fence watching a U.S. Army Air Forces C-47 transport plane flying supplies to them. View from below of a C-54 transport plane descending to land, with supplies, at Templehof airfield in West Berlin. A C-54 taking off to make another supply run. A pallet of coal being offloaded from a C-54. A tram running on restricted schedule. A Berliner planting food in a deserted lot near a demolished building. People assembled in front of the severely damaged Bundestag and in other places surrounded by war torn buildings. Berlin Mayor Ernst Reuter, speaks of seeking assistance from America, England, France, and Italy, to help his city. Closeups of some of the Berliners applauding him. An airlift airplane labeled "Operation Santa Claus" with a soldier dressed like Santa, dispensing wrapped gifts or candy to German children near the plane's doorway. German children can be seen and heard singing "deck the Halls" in English. A soldier dressed as St. Nicholas stands next to one dressed as a Native American Indian. Children sing Martin Luther's hymn, "Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott" ("A Mighty Fortress Is Our God"). A British Sunderland flying boat, takes off on the Havel River, in Berlin, after delivering supplies to the city. Grateful Berliners surrounding American pilots. Children run in a street carrying a large model of an airplane to simulate the Berlin airlift. Children playing "airlift" on a sidewalk. An airlift plane crashed and burning in a residential section of Berlin. German fire fighters battle the flames with hoses. A C-54 airlift plane descending to land with its gear extended. Scene at midnight, May 2, 1949, as the barriers isolating Berlin are raised, as the Soviets promised free and improved access to Berlin. People waving flowers as trucks once again move into the city. But Communists are seen violently storming the Greater Berlin City Hall in the Eastern Sector of the city. Non-Communist deputies in the Eastern Sector are forced to meet in West Berlin, where they meet without being molested. View of the Berlin Logo (Bear). Free election vote being deposited in a ballot box. Animated map shows how Berlin was cut in two, separating East Berlin from West Berlin.
Film depicts the conditions which existed during post-World War II blockade of Berlin and final lifting of blockade. U.S. Army Air Forces C-54 Skymaster transport aircraft participating in Berlin Airlift taxis on runway. Flour being unloaded from C-54. German laborers load coal in cars. U.S. Brigadier General Frank L. Howley stands before a map of Berlin and speaks about final lifting of Berlin blockade. German children playing on sidewalks in Berlin. After blockade is lifted, view of the first railroad train entering east Berlin at Berlin-Charlottenburg railroad station, on May 12, 1949. Crowded station scene for the first train. Passengers disembark at station. General Howley speaks about Berlin blockade. Children playing on streets of Berlin. A carnival amusement ride spinning in Berlin, amid bomb damaged buildings behind it.
Daily life for the people of Berlin during the Berlin Blockade. People listen to the radio at a street corner. People buy newspapers at a stand. Man reads the paper. German newspaper headline states that the Berlin problem has been put before the UN. Interiors of a food store, a lady clerk takes contents out of can and weighs it. People coming out of bakery, one woman carrying bread. U.S. planes fly over Berlin during Berlin Airlift operations. Route taken shown over a globe diagram. Men work on a new airfield at Tegel. Workers leveling concrete runway during the construction of Berlin Tegel Airport. Trucks and construction equipment. Coal being loaded into a barge at Gatow. Large drums of coal and equipment. A Short Sunderland flying boat taking off. American planes landing at Berlin Tempelhof airfield. People in truck as it moves towards the plane. People watch planes fly overhead.
Berlin during Berlin Airlift operations. Streetcars in Berlin enter tunnel. Pedestrians walk on streets. Roads of Berlin darkened during night hours due to power cuts. A Berlin Airlift "Raisin Bomber" airplane flying low over the city at dusk. Headlamps of vehicles on streets during night. People going to work walk up the stairs of a subway in morning hours. Counter girl sells bread and other bakery goods to customers in a bakery shop. Canned goods emptied from a can and weighed in a shop. Citizens gathered around a news stand. A busy market of Berlin. The partially bomb damaged Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in Berlin, with a plan flying in the background.
Cuban leader Fidel Castro meets Nikita Khrushchev and other Soviet politicians. Nikita Khrushchev and Fidel Castro leaves with their entourage. The Brandenburg Gate as seen from the West Berlin side at the height of the Cold War. Barbed wires on the border of East and West Berlin. The construction of the Berlin Wall. East German soldier guards the border between the two Berlins. East German guard Konrad Schumann jumps over the barbed wire while dropping his PPSh-41 submachine gun as he escapes to West Berlin during the construction of the Berlin Wall. Schumann runs towards and boards a West Berlin police van. Host or narrator of the film shows photographs of Fidel Castro with Nikita Khrushchev and the “Leap into Freedom” photo by West German photographer Peter Leibing. “The communists are the true colonialists, as a matter of fact.” The narrator said as the show reaches its conclusion.
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