The Berlin Airlift Sixty Years On

A Distinguished Scholar Seminar featuring Gerhard L. Weinberg, William Rand Kenan Jr. Professor of History, Emeritus

Time: December 13, 2008, 9:15 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.

With Support from the Center for European Studies

This seminar with distinguished historian Gerhard L. Weinberg takes the sixtieth anniversary of the Berlin Airlift to reflect back on the origins of Cold War. On June 24, 1948, the Soviets announced that the four-power administration of Berlin had ceased and that the Allies no longer had any rights there. On June 26, the United States and Britain began to supply the city with food and other vital supplies by air. They also organized a similar "airlift" in the opposite direction. Professor Weinberg will take us back to the origins of the situation in Berlin and explain why the Soviets set up the blockade. He'll explore the logistical efforts of running the blockade, and explain why the Soviets lifted it when they did. He will conclude with a session on the larger significance of the blockade for Germany's future, as well as relations between the United States and the Soviet Union.

Gerhard L. Weinberg is the author of ten books, including A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II (which received three major awards for scholarship, was a Book of the Month Club Main Selection, and is widely considered to be the best single-volume history of World War Two), Visions of Victory: The Hopes of Eight World War Two Leaders, and Hitler's Foreign Policy: 1933-1939 The Road to World War II.

Topics

The Origins of the Situation: Germany in Zones and Sectors

The Origins and the Operation of the Blockade

The Airlift

The Importance and Effects of the Blockade and the Airlift

Tuition for general public is $120
Tuition for teachers is $60
Tuition for students is $20
The optional lunch is $10 extra for ALL.
10 contact hours for 1 unit of renewal credit.

This seminar is supported by the Center for European Studies.

For more information visit http://www.unc.edu/depts/human/level_3/2008_fall/93-BerlinAirlift.htm
or contact Caroline Dyar: 919-962-1546, dyar@email.unc.edu.