ABSTRACT
John Lewis Gaddis, the uncrowned, unconsecrated pope of cold-war history, sees the existence of a divided Berlin, within a divided Germany, within a divided Europe, as one of the most striking anomalies of the cold war. For the second half of the twentieth century, Berlin was synonymous with the conflict between communism and capitalism. In cold-war Berlin, Military Police units of the Four Allies were foremost in surveying and policing the border. They were integrated within a security apparatus influenced and steered by the rival intelligence agencies. At first, at least in theory, the Western Allies operated in tandem with the Soviets, as foreseen by Four-Power Agreements, but increasingly the former allies found themselves ideologically at odds. In the autumn of 1948, West Berlin – with its 2 million inhabitants and 188 square miles of territory – essentially became an island or exclave, surrounded by a hostile and at times encroaching communist sea.
