On May 12th, 1949 the
blockade of Berlin finally came to an end. What blockade? In June of 1948, Soviet forces cut off every road into West Berlin, completely knocking off supplies to a city of over 2 1/2 million people. So to help, each day supplies were airlifted into Berlin to help keep the folks alive. After almost a year, the blockade finally ended on May 12, 1949. And this kind of difficulty was status quo for Berlin for several decades on end.
We thought we provide an an interesting historical insight into the great city of Berlin, and compile a listing of films and videos related to Berlin during this period on the twentieth century. We have many videos related to World War One and Germany (
La Grande Illusion,
here, or
here), but our focus today is on
Berlin. Let's begin with a classic
Fritz Lang film
titled M, starring
Peter Lorre. Set in Berlin, the film tells a terrific and horrific story of how the criminal underworld sets out to capture a sick whacko who is killing innocent children. The film was made in 1931. Next up, check out the
1936 Berlin Olympics and watch
Jesse Owens victory in the 100m dash upset the host of the Berlin games,
Adolf Hitler. And on to the 1940s, where Berlin was the HQ of the
Nazis during
WWII. Another interesting set of short videos can be found for a search of the
Berlin Wall. A good film of that era is Fritz Lang's
1000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse, made in 1960. On the night November 9, 1989 - the Berlin Wall was finally attacked by the people and on its way down for good. Or so we hope.
