The aircraft, departing from bases in western Germany, flew necessities: coal, oil, flour, dehydrated food, and salt. But they also flew grand pianos and, in one case, a power plant. Berlin’s economy ran by air. Stalin, ultimately, could not hold out—the blockade hurt him more than it hurt his adversaries. In the eleventh month, after more than a quarter of a million flights, he lifted the barriers. The lesson was clear: Stalin had territorial control, but that didn’t mean what it used to. It was a lesson Moscow would be taught repeatedly. Starting in the late forties, the United States
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