Background to Berlin | 1962 | NATO Documentary

Background to Berlin - a film in the Atlantic Review series [1962 - NATO Information Service]
This film tells the story of the city of Berlin from the end of World War II to the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961. It traces the origin of the Allied rights in Berlin, shows how the city came to be divided, and relates the problem of Berlin in the lager context of German reunification. It also explains why the fifteen NATO nations supported the defense of West Berlin's freedom in front of Soviet pressure.
The film is part of a the "Atlantic Review series" developed between 1959 and 1968 by the NATO Information Service. Originally conceived as filmed magazines, the films in this series were composed of short reports on specific topics dealing with NATO members which were developed for troop information. Four to six issues were envisaged every year, using as much library footage as possible from NATO and from national governments and, ideally, requesting not more than 30% of original NATO shooting. After a few issues however, each edition focused on one topic with a more detailed treatment, and the films in this series, although still aimed at military audiences, were more widely distributed. This was particularly the case with "Background to Berlin", which deals with political issues more than purely military topics, and was widely used in civilian and military circles.
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[@PatriciaSantos-rb3pi]

Excellent documentary. NATO was as necessary back then as it is today. Thank you USA for saving Western Europe twice in the 20th century. Many have short memory or study by the wrong books. The truth is that we'd all speak Russian and would be under Moscow's nefarious whip if the USA didn't come to rescue us!

[@herb1563]

And even more necessary now😳

[@AKAHEIZER]

It was a little bit more complicated... NATO exist to: "Keep the Russians out the Americans in and the Germans down" Or something like that. 🤔 🇺🇲🇩🇪🇫🇷🇷🇺

[@flopunkt3665]

@@AKAHEIZER that's why the US spent billions of dollars in the Marshall plan to rebuild West Germany.....

[@jonathanstempleton7864]

And Great Britain and the rest

[@Swaggerlot]

Never forget that the US were a late entrant both times due to internal politics. In WWII Roosevelt had to work hard against pro Nazi and pacifist movements to get the US fighting Germany.

[@williamxi4571]

The most splendid documentary I've ever seen, today we should be more clear about how crucial to learn lessons from history.

[@rsc9520]

I agree 100% with William.

[@wooddog007]

@21:50 ... [Soviet] "refusal to acknowledge the principle of self-determination by means of free elections" ... sound familiar? Germany in the 1950s or Ukraine in 2023 ... Russia still refuses to acknowledge the principle of self-determination by means of free elections...

[@bepolite6961]

I was a kid in Berlin with my dad, a Corporal in the Welch Regiment when this happened. I can just remember it. When it came down, I was a Corporal posted at HQ AFCENT, HOLLAND, my boss was a German Oberhauptfeldwebel. Those were happy days for many of my German friends, more than 30 years later I still remember them with fond memories and of course my late father and mother.

[@danf-lynch1220]

Oberhauptfeldwebel? Highly unlikely as that would be an OR-6.5. Hauptfeldwebel is an OR-7, Oberfeldwebel an OR-6. Oberstabsfeldwebel perhaps as that would be an OR-9.

[@friendofcoal]

As a former member of one of the forces comprising NATO, I can say that I was and still am Proud of my service to my Country, to NATO, to West Germany (at that time), and to the Free World. It was a privilege for me to serve all of them. For two years, I was at the tip of the spear in the defense of West Germany and Free Europe. And I would do it again if ever the need should arise, or I'm called upon to do so for the protection of the Freedoms for the World. The day "the Wall" came down, I was greatly touched and moved not only for West Germany but for Germany and the Free Countries of the World.

[@bepolite6961]

Me too, as was my father, I was born in the former West Germany. My birth certificate has my place of birth as BMH Rinteln, BAOR.

[@marcelschnitzler1259]

Thank you for your service !

[@robertlee3]

I was a infant when this was made, 1962. It was not all that long ago in the grand scheme of things. How quickly we forget how horrible world war II was.

[@yutubl]

Hmmh, I really never met anyone who could forget post-WW2-era. I'm born 1963 in northern germany, all my grand parents escaped over the baltic sea from east prussia which is today Russia/Kaliningrad and lived a very long time in refugee camps in the town Flensburg where capitulation was signed and which doubled its population by refugees, just not speaking about what happened to Hamburgs citizens or around north germany. Living 30 years in Aachen, they also didn't forget, their west borders have been much more part of both wars which became integral center of international Europe Union, which was also a good idea before WW1.

[@neilmurray885]

I visited Berlin a few weeks ago. It was very interesting. So much history to see. I’m coming back. There is so much to see

[@kabiam]

And it ended up exactly as predicted. Reunification. The few years of a split city are only a tiny blip in 786 year history of Berlin.

[@johnpenner5182]

like an old tree growing around a wound 🌳

[@monoecumsemper]

@@johnpenner5182 (are you German by any chance, 'Penner' ?) Only that the tree grows much faster around its wound than that German ""reunification"", which will never come out as 'one tree': too many Communist/Nazi parasites keep sprinkling salt into the wound.

[@Starpommm]

5:14 As a russian speaking person I should mention that it's pretty funny that brits wrote it wrong in Russian it should be "британский сектор" instead of "бритиский сектор"

[@paolopaolo731]

Excellent documentary

[@SamDeeksRelovedGuitars]

Well worth revisiting this part of history from where we are today, nearly 1 year into Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

[@docBZA]

Anyone questioning the West’s support for Ukraine ought to watch this, lest history repeats itself. Some Americans who would abandon Ukraine today would also have abandoned West Berlin in 1949

[@adriandawson4924]

I first visited Dec 1952 as a cadet. I saw it again in 1957 in National Service. I saw it after Die Mayer ist kaput 1995. Ich Liebe Berlin.

[@adriandawson4924]

Mayer muss Mauer sein.

[@estate0007]

I appreciate your efforts to speak our german language, Sir!

[@ontheisland11]

Even this, a NATO documentary from 1962, glosses over one of the key facts about WW2, namely that the USSR and Germany were allies themselves from 1939-41. True, the Soviets ended up fighting the Nazis, but only after their real ideological allies had ratted on them. I remember being amazed when I found out as a teenager interested in history, that the USSR had jointly occupied Poland. When I was at school, the issue of the mass murder of Poles at Katyn was embarrassingly fudged and it was said that there some doubt whether the Nazis had carried it out. I asked my father who was a detective and he told me that there was no doubt at all, and that the Soviet NKVD had carried it out using German rope and pistols for reasons of 'plausible deniability'. I found all this astonishing. I mention it because I believe that the West's recent willingness to treat with Putin (see Schroder, Sarkozy et al) was founded (along with sheer greed) in a lack of understanding that Russia has never renounced imperialism and the belief that its neighbours are merely its vassals. Russia has never confronted the evil past of the Czars and Communists anymore than Russians really question Putin's crime state. And so here we are today, with genocide being committed in Europe on a scale unparalleled since WW2. And still I don't think the West really understands, though you do if you're, say, Polish, Baltic or Czech...

[@sarahquerry8516]

I was stationed in Berlin at McNair barracks, 62 to 64

[@josefdvorak6811]

Czechoslovakia unfortunately fell into the "Russian" sector by the Yalta agreement. Fortunately, we are now back in Europe and NATO. But the 44 years of the "Russian world" were a great tragedy for us. The German fascist occupation was replaced by the Soviet occupation.. I understand the tragedy of a divided Berlin. But in divided Berlin, you can see how they ended up under democracy and under Russian administration.

[@aaronkuminski1415]

You know you're a shifty country when you have to wall your people in then wall people out

[@herb1563]

Like get the hint😂

[@kulturfreund6631]

The story is a bit more complex. - The Soviet zone of occupation, which 1949 became the German Democratic Republic had to pay reparations to the USSR for the horrendous devastation caused by Nazi-Germany. This part of Germany was running out of the knowledgeable and skilled workforce moving to Western Germany. How do you think the GDR would have been able to fulfill its duties and produce goods for the USSR ? With retirees and geriatrics?

[@BenSeigal]

@@kulturfreund6631 And what are you saying?

[@_____.__]

@@kulturfreund6631 It is not clear from your comment whether you support or condemn the soviet occupation, but the soviets could have started with creation of the appropriate living conditions and providing democracy on occupied territories. However, that was not possible due to their ideology. So, they had to resort to repressions and building high walls to stop people fleeing the "communist heaven". What soviets did at the time and what putin tries to achieve in Ukraine now is pretty much the same. The russian empire must fall!

[@MaximusandHistory]

@@_____.__ The Soviets couldn't start the appropriate living conditions for a multitude of reasons which have seemingly been forgotten on purpose? Any ways, after WW2 the USSR had lost 28 million people and most of its major cities were lying in complete ruins. Half of its industries had been destroyed and millions of people were left homeless. In 1946-1947 the Soviet Union experienced a famine which claimed somewhere between one to two million lives due to the destruction of the much needed infrastructure. The Soviets were in no position to rebuild East Berlin or Germany within such a short amount of time. It's like a rich and powerful person asking a poor person why they don't have a house. The U.S and Great Britain did not lose millions of people in WW2 and most of their cities did not face the horrific levels of destruction that the Soviets experienced from Hitler's invasion. They were in a position of wealth and stability and could offer it to Germany, hence why the Marshall plan was able to restart West Germany's economy much more quickly than the Soviets were able to provide to the GDR. It also doesn't help that the 3 Western powers had secretly planned the creation of West Germany without consulting or informing the Soviets. The Potsdam agreement legally set out the conditions that Germany would be treated as one, and in this case they didn't have any plans to do so. They also didn't tell the Soviets that they were going to merge West Berlin's sectors into Bizonia. And finally with the introduction of the Deutsch Mark in 1948, millions of Reichsmarks ended up leaking into East Berlin and this could have caused a complete economic collapse in the Soviet Sector because of hyper inflation. The Soviets at that point were fed up with the unfavorable conditions and carried out a full blockade of West Berlin to stop the flow of Reichsmarks into East Berlin and to kick the allies out.

[@poodtang2104]

Cool documentary.

[@markrossow6303]

( saw East Berlin in Summer 1989 -- pretty close to " Last Chance to See " )

[@mac2105]

Where is that tower visible at 4:06? Wasserturm Tempelhofer Berg?

[@koffiewolf]

Berlin used to be such a Jugenstill gem of a city. Look at what mess those modernist replaced it with after the second wold war demolish it.

[@lazarusboi6289]

Yes, I don't think it was their priority to reconstruct such costly architecture when millions were homeless and Germany was all but devastated.

[@germanchris4440]

And it gets worse and worse. I totally agree. But in the meantime, it is not only this humiliated Berlin that is to be pitied, but the entire Western world...

[@_____.__]

@@germanchris4440 Do you know a better, time-proven political system you can share with us or is it just a casual mutter? 😉

[@galapagos4154]

Türkçe altyazı desteği için teşekkür ederim 🙏🙏🇹🇷

[@johnpenner5182]

📺 @4:02 in the video - It would appear that the soviets had agreed to joint occupation only because they believed that in the first free elections Berlin would vote Communist. So it was with confidence that they watched the democratic processes of free ballot. But although Communist support in Berlin was far from negligible, for them the results came as a shock. Instead of a landslide for the extreme left, there came instead a victory for the Social Democrats and other non-Communists.. In the eastern sector of Berlin, Communist power was fully established. Party bosses, party youth, party rallies, permeated with all the hysteria previously associated with the Nazis. growing up - i remember the fall of the berlin wall - but i never knew why it went up!? 🤷🏼‍♂ i knew it was about borders between communists and the so-called west (which apparently 'we' lived in). these political concepts and groupings - and the continued division of humanity into political parties and identities continues to bewilder me. yet as i study back into why my grand-parents fled the brutality of the communists in soviet ukraine in 1929 - looking back in history, one can see how what is invisible - the IDEAS of the manifesto are what move minds and this is what moves history. in the aftermath of the second world war - the communists of the C.C.C.P. and the western contingent had an uneasy alliance after trampling the corpse of the nazis - and they came to settle down to drawing an imaginary line right through a city - and they hadnt really made up their minds about each other. the communists were optimistic! - karl marx was a native of the city - of course if it came to a vote - berliners would vote communist! it was an 'historical inevitability' that the workers in the west should do so - once they had seen how much better things were going on their side of the fence - it may behoove the neo-marxists to consider this historical moment which fractured a city. 🤔

[@MichaelrosiBrinkmann]

2:09 so interesting.. First I thought they were so stupid to draw a wrong borderline - but that had been the farest frontline that the U.S.-troops reached in WWII

[@anonUK]

Who narrated? It sounds like the voice of Arthur Lowe, before he did Dad's Army. I don't know whether he was in Coronation Street before this time but that was a regional show at the time.

[@analogueman123456787]

I don't know who it is, but it certainly isn't Arthur Lowe.

[@boandlkramer2539]

I take pride in the words "Ich bin ein Berliner"...!!!! JFK ❤ Greetings from Wedding in West Berlin 23/4/23❤

[@granskare]

I flew into west Berlin. I visited the Russian war memorial which was in the British sector.

[@user-xn8hk4je4i]

thank you very much...................................................................................................................................................................................................

[@chrisk5651]

Someone who wanted to build a wall here should watch this especially the first words - of he hated NATO!

[@MoreheadFire]

The narrator sounds like Laurence Olivier. Anyone know?

[@acanadianineurope814]

it did sound very much like him

[@alexie18]

1960s America : "TEAR DOWN THIS WALL!" 2020s America : "BUILD A WALL"

[@BenSeigal]

And what a beatiful site to see of Berlin in 1945

[@cristic767]

I liked your comment, but "beautiful" is a poor choice of a word.

[@ryanreedgibson]

You would think Putin would learn from history. THIS JUST REPEATED! The NATO alliance was stagnant and on the verge of decay and Russia invaded Ukraine. Now NATO is strong with even new members. I am proud to see where Germany is today. Seeing the hard work put into their future success is awe inspiring.

[@josemoreno3334]

Former members of the Warsaw Pact mInus Russia are now members of NATO. Even neutral Finland and Sweden are members too.😁. I got a chance to visit then West Germany twice back in the early 1980s when I was serving in USAF. Glad to be part of cold war history.👍

[@stevenphillips3466]

I remember VW was from West Germany ....I want a Porsche 1979 911 Targa built in West Germany also

[@gunnarerdmann7104]

Great , on the maps shown prussia was still existent.

[@Paramecium13]

13:45

[@rolfen]

Can anyone help me transliterate the chants at 24:15? What are they saying? Sounds like "Haut ab ... Schweinehund"? I'm not sure especially about the last bit (Schweinehund) but it's the best I could make, maybe someone else with better knowledge can find out.

[@xrecix]

the first part is a little bit hard to understand but they're shouting "Volksabstimmung"

[@hansgruber650]

Allied version of liberation.

[@chetpomeroy1399]

The Soviets had *every legal right* to assert their postwar boundaries with the West in Berlin. The three victorious Western occupying powers and the Soviet Union had mutually signed a treaty near the end of World War II which made those boundaries legal. Those boundaries didn't legally disappear until the _Four-Plus-Two Treaty_ was signed in 1990 when all four occupying Powers relinquished their postwar control of Berlin.

[@mathisnotforthefaintofheart]

So why was Krushchev yelling at the West that Berlin as a whole was East German territory? But in a way I am glad to see the Wall exist for 28 years. If everyone after all these years STILL believes that communism can exist, may I suggest a psychiatrist?

[@johnpenner5182]

RE [Chet Pomeroy]: The Soviets had every legal right to assert their postwar boundaries with the West in Berlin. hitler was also legal - he was voted in democratically - not all things that are legal are good. 🤨

[@jons4418]

They lost.

[@davidwilliams7723]

The only thing the Soviets has a right to in the late 1940s was a mushroom cloud. Patton was right and we should have used our nuclear monopoly against the greatest evil in history when we had the chance.

[@MarcosElMalo2]

Your point is undermined by Soviet failure to live up to its other agreements, and the original framework for settlement. If you violate a contract, you cannot merely insist on the legality of one of the clauses afterwards. Sadly, you might get away with it internationally if your nuclear weapons prevent anyone from enforcing the contract.

[@occidentalexplorer1125]

At 17:30 I love how the Red Army uses American Sherman Tanks to crush a Capitalist rebellion against the communist regime.

[@rixille]

Those are Russian T-34's.

[@arnerusbjerg9138]

@@rixillethose are lend lease American tanks produced in Russia. American design.

[@michaelfrederick5469]

They are T-34 without a doubt.

[@MarcosElMalo2]

@@arnerusbjerg9138 No, they’re T-34s. Trolling hadn’t yet been invented and the Soviets wanted to project military power, not irony. But I will admit it would have been a helluva troll if they used Sherman tanks.

[@i-heart-google7132]

Thank you, NATO! Thank you, USA! God bless the Great United States of America!

[@jalandharvasanth9126]

NATO helped a lot to rebuilt the Berlin again

[@germanchris4440]

The majority of East Germans got used to the whole thing. That's how people in general are, they even start to love their slavery or captivity after some time. This wall came down according to plan, of course.