-Source-The Daily Signal-
-Quote of the Day-
"The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous." Frederick Douglass
Two weeks ago, on June 6, we commemorated D-Day—the start of the land battle to free Europe from Nazi tyranny.
On Thursday, we celebrate another significant anniversary. It was 70 years ago, on June 20, 1948, that the U.S. and its allies started their first major fight of the Cold War, aiming to stop mass murderer and tyrant Josef Stalin from enslaving more people in Europe: the Berlin Airlift.
When World War II ended, Germany was divided into four zones, with one each controlled by the Americans, the British, the French, and the Russians. Berlin, which was entirely in the Russian sector, was also divided into four zones, to the great annoyance of the Russians.
The Russians had brutally subjugated their portion of Germany, including Berlin, raping and pillaging like the Mongols during the Middle Ages. Everyone who could—including my grandmother—tried to get out of the Russian zone. She bribed a guide to smuggle her and her 10-year-old daughter past Russian patrols into the American sector, where she was reunited with my mother and her other two daughters in a refugee camp.
The portion of Berlin not occupied by the Russians was an island of liberty in a sea of totalitarian tyranny. Stalin was intent on capturing the rest of Europe. In February 1948, the Russians staged a coup in Soviet-occupied Czechoslovakia, throwing out its democratic government and installing a communist puppet government.
Next on Stalin’s list was Berlin. Stalin was angered by American, British, and French plans to create a new German state out of their occupation zones. Read more