Uploaded September 2018 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago

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The Berlin Airlift: this animated history video explains why the Airlift was a critical part of German history.

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This is a work of nonfiction with one important exception: Erika is meant as stand-in for the children of Berlin. The opening scene is a dramatization (in fact, a lot of Berlin’s bombing happened in daylight). However, the final story with the Teddy Bear comes from a real interview with Gail Halvorsen, and is the inspiration for Erika (Source 9 in description).
As always, sources for factual claims are numbered within the subtitles.

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Sources (links upon request)
1. Alexandra Richie, ‘Faust’s Metropolis: a History of Berlin’
2. Roger G. Miller, ‘To Save a City, The Berlin Airlift’
3. Bettina Greiner, ‘Suppressed Ter - ror: History and Perception of Soviet Special Camps in Germany’
4. Ann and John Tussa, ‘The Berlin Airlift’
5. Andrei Cherny, ‘The Candy Bombers’
6. Robert Jackson, ‘The Berlin Airlift’
7. BBC, “Fact File: Big Week, 20 to 25 February 1944”
8. Sportpalast speech 1943 (link upon request)
9. HistoryNet, “Interview with Gail Halvorsen”
10. *Reading to accompany sources 1&3 * Wikipedia “NKVD special camps in Germany 1945-49”
11. *Reading to accompany sources 1&3 * Wikipedia “Forced labor of Germans in the Soviet Union”
12. American Experience ‘The Berlin Airlift’
13. (also sourced in 1 & 4) Berlin state election, 1946. Wikipedia.
14. Britannica, ‘Marshall Plan’
15. Arthur Percy, ‘Berlin Airlift’
16. Avi Shlaim, ‘The United States and the Berlin Blockade’
17. Helena Schrader, ‘Blockade Breakers: The Berlin Airlift’
18. Truman Library, ‘Oral History Interview with Lucius D. Clay’
19. GHDI ‘City Councilor Ernst Reuter Appeals to the "People of the World"’

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★ NOTE ON SOURCING IN CAPTIONS▼▼▼▼▼▼▼

I've added a citation system into my closed captioning. In order to be respectful to the hard of hearing members of this community, I've tried to make this as non-intrusive as possible., so as not to distract from reading.

At the end of a sentence with sourcing, something like this will appear:
"The sky is blue. The ocean is blue (17,89)."
In this example, the 1st number represents the source # from the source list in the description.
The 2nd number represents the page number, if the source is a book.

Photo Credits:
1946 election Bundesarchiv
Wir wohlen By Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-B0527-0001-753 / CC-BY-SA 3.0
Music Credits:
Interloper by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Source: incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100401
Artist: incompetech.com
Namaste by Audionautix is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Artist: audionautix.com
Expeditionary by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Source: incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100436
Artist: incompetech.com
Drone in D by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Source: incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1200044
Artist: incompetech.com
Sound Credits:
Bombing ERH on Freesound
Bombing Wordswar on Freesound

#history
#politicalhistory
#germany