The Airlift
Victories, Myths, and the Berlin Blockade
Published on 23. October 2025
Book
Hardback
978-1-80399-822-0 (ISBN)
Description
'A thrilling portrait of the Berlin Airlift as seen through the eyes of those who lived through it ' - J.M. Tyree, editor of Film Quarterly
In this captivating account of the Berlin Airlift, Joseph Pearson tells the forgotten story of a group of airmen who, in 1948-49, just years after bombing Berlin in the Second World War, returned to the skies. This time they risked their lives to drop chocolate, not bombs. Meanwhile, German citizens looked upwards not with dread and hatred but with hope and admiration.
The Airlift is not your standard military history. Drawing on first-hand interviews and untapped sources from both German and Anglo-American archives, Pearson interweaves personal tales into an extraordinary story: an American pilot crashing in Soviet territory; a Jewish photographer struggling to reconcile with the Germans; the 17,000 women who built Tegel Airport; Cambridge University actors performing in the ruins for British intelligence; Hollywood star Montgomery Clift filming at Tempelhof Airport; and a Berlin girl trying to outrun the boys reaching for chocolate.
Through this deeply human lens, Pearson offers crucial historical insight into how lasting new battlelines were formed. The Berlin Airlift didn't just supply a city; it wrote the playbook of the Cold War and continues to influence Western thinking and diplomacy with Russia to this day.
In this captivating account of the Berlin Airlift, Joseph Pearson tells the forgotten story of a group of airmen who, in 1948-49, just years after bombing Berlin in the Second World War, returned to the skies. This time they risked their lives to drop chocolate, not bombs. Meanwhile, German citizens looked upwards not with dread and hatred but with hope and admiration.
The Airlift is not your standard military history. Drawing on first-hand interviews and untapped sources from both German and Anglo-American archives, Pearson interweaves personal tales into an extraordinary story: an American pilot crashing in Soviet territory; a Jewish photographer struggling to reconcile with the Germans; the 17,000 women who built Tegel Airport; Cambridge University actors performing in the ruins for British intelligence; Hollywood star Montgomery Clift filming at Tempelhof Airport; and a Berlin girl trying to outrun the boys reaching for chocolate.
Through this deeply human lens, Pearson offers crucial historical insight into how lasting new battlelines were formed. The Berlin Airlift didn't just supply a city; it wrote the playbook of the Cold War and continues to influence Western thinking and diplomacy with Russia to this day.
Reviews / Votes
'Joseph Pearson's The Airlift is a thrilling portrait of the Berlin Airlift as seen through the eyes of those who lived through it, from pilots to photographers and ordinary citizens. Pearson weaves together his meticulous new research and his in-depth interviews with a prodigious gift for storytelling. This is history that unfolds like a great documentary film - I could not put down this book!' -- J. M. Tyree, Editor of <i>Film Quarterly</i> Praise for the author:'Literary non-fiction at its best' - NORMAN OHLER, author of Blitzed
'Astonishing detective work' JULIA BOYD, author of Travellers in The Third Reich
'Historian Joseph Pearson masterfully offers a close reading of the metropolis in all its brutal immediacy' - PATRICK DONAHUE, Bloomberg News
'Joseph Pearson has discovered a unique and exciting way of telling history' - PETER MANSBRIDGE, author of Off The Record 'Pearson takes an illuminating, up-close look at the Berlin Airlift and the kicking off of the Cold War. Through probing interviews with those who were present, Pearson reveals how the airlift, more than just a successful propaganda campaign by the Westerners, was a viscerally felt moment of political realignment, which engendered doubt among some Americans (who didn't want to ally with former Nazis) and hope among Berliners (who wanted to rehabilitate their image in the West). This adds complexity to a major historical turning point.' -- Publishers Weekly A revisionist scrutiny of a humanitarian mission. Pearson reminds readers that three years after their defeat, Germans were still hungry and their cities in ruins. The dawn of the Cold War through a gimlet eye. -- Kirkus Reviews
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Stroud
United Kingdom
Illustrations
16 Plates, black and white; 30 Illustrations, black and white
Dimensions
Height: 238 mm
Width: 161 mm
Thickness: 30 mm
Weight
526 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-80399-822-0 (9781803998220)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Dr JOSEPH PEARSON was born in Canada, studied at Middlebury College in Vermont and has a doctorate in Modern History from the University of Cambridge. He taught at Columbia University and currently lectures at the Barenboim-Said Akademie and New York University in Berlin. He is the author of My Grandfather's Knife (The History Press) and Berlin (Reaktion Books), a portrait of the city in which he now lives and works.