Talk:Berlin Crisis of 1961

Stand-off between US and Soviet tanks
@Ten of these tanks continued to Friedrichstraße... - "Both groups of tanks had orders to fire if fired upon" - I'm watching a german documentary right now, which claims soviet tanks had orders to fire if approached, while american tanks did not. If this is the case, the article quote might not be technically incorrect, although somewhat misleading. --Martinor (talk) 23:12, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Stand-off between US and Soviet tanks
- At first, I want to give a notice of that unfortunately my English is not so good to completely and correctly state my thoughts.

After comparison of this article with some other documentations regarding "Berlin Crisis of 1961" I have noticed that in Wiki there is only American view represented, while Soviet is not. From the memoirs of Soviet spy Victor Lubimov:

"Tensions in German questions remained too long, and we had to do something to protect the GDR. After agreement with German side we have closed boundaries between East and West Germany, including in Berlin itself on the night of 12 to 13 August 1961. This caused a great noise in the West, calls for the use of force, etc. It should be noted that the U.S. president looked at those things more realistically. He believed that the GDR had such right, and that he didn't have any rights to wage war with them. However, immediately after the overlapping boundaries between East and West Germany, Vice-President Lyndon Johnson quickly came to West Berlin to demonstrate the firmness of the U.S. and the West. The key to a show of force was supposed to be a parade of 1,500 U.S. marines in full armor and military equipment sent further into West Berlin. Movement of the convoy, at the direction of Nikita Khrushchev, held without hindrance. With the help of great abilities of GRU officer Chitalina to act, at one of the checkpoints, movement of troops was seriously retarded within the agreed procedure. Therefore troops were late. So it was pointless to run parade at night. Demonstration of force was disrupted. However, tensions persisted and continued to increase. GRU was informed about plans and intentions of NATO by agents Murat and Giselle in a timely manner. In particular, from Murat's military intelligence had information about the 8 plans of the risk of war (Alfa |, Bravo |, Charlie | etc.) Tensions icnreased. General Clay was sent to Berlin from the American side, from the Soviet side - Marshal Konev.

On October 28, 1961 Americans have set the action for the destruction of barriers at one of the checkpoints in Berlin. Military intelligence in advance has received information about the exact time of the operation and involved power. Due to this information it was possible to prepare a response and to prevent possible confrontations. The information was accurate. Initially, the action occured in accordance with the plan developed in the headquarters of General Clay. There were coming three jeeps with military and civilian officials to the check-point at Brandenburg Gates, behind jeeps were bulldozers and 10 tanks with closed hatches and uncovered weapons. As the response there had been deployed to a battalion of infantry and a regiment of Soviet tanks at the side streets. After the jeeps unimpeded drove through check-point, our tanks had started they engines and they came out of the side streets toward the bulldozers. Bulldozers stood at the western territory before reaching the boundary line. Soviet tanks stopped. Jeeps after rushing around in the rear of our tanks, we turned around and returned to West Berlin. American and Soviet tanks had remained on the ground. The standoff lasted almost all night. Then Soviet tanks turned around and went back into the alleys by the command from Moscow. 20 minutes later - 30 U.S. tanks and bulldozers also gone.

With that confrontation Second Berlins Crisis finished. It was recognized de facto establishment of borders and control of the GDR. Peaceful resolution of the crisis had contributed quite a documentary and other information from the sources of the GRU, such as Murat, Giselle, and skillful actions of the military intelligence officers, such as a retired colonel Chitalin."

After this memoirs this statement from the article: "on 27 October 1961, Mr. Hemsing again approached the zonal boundary in a diplomatic vehicle. But Clay did not know how the Soviets would respond, so just in case, he had sent tanks with an infantry battalion to the nearby Tempelhof airfield." sounds naive and deceitful. I would be very glad if someone could translate Victor Lubimov's memoirs more correctly in order to add them in this article.

Memoir of Victor Lubimov [] - in Russian Additional info [] - in Russian. General A. Palii --Iskandercv (talk) 07:37, 09 November 2009

Berlin Blockade
There is significant overlap between this article and the Berlin Blockade. - Canglesea (talk) 14:55, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Why do you say that? These are two different incidents seperated by 13 years--Work permit (talk) 17:21, 12 July 2008 (UTC)


 * mentions three major confrontations over Berlin: The Berlin Blockade and crises in 1958-59 and 1961-62.  Raphael described the 1946 to 1962 period as major flash point during that period of the Cold War.


 * I think this article could be improved with at least one mention of the 1948-49 Berlin Blockade. I just added a link to this article to the Berlin Blockade article, but I don't have a good vision on how to make the reverse connection here.  I hope someone else will find a way to do that.  DavidMCEddy (talk) 19:11, 25 May 2019 (UTC)

Dubious sources
Hi. I would like to express some concern about the credibility and validity of this article.

While most of it is not too controversial in its content, its sources remains unclear regarding their validity and reliability. Some examples:


 * A larger part of the article is a direct transcription from this source: GlobalSecurity.org. As it contains essential information to the article, I have personally rewritten smaller parts of it some time ago, but still large parts are included in the article unchanged. This might instigate copyright issues.
 * Is Videofact International Documentary a reliable source? I have tried to investigate, but cannot find any useful information on their credibility. It might be a propaganda organ, a personal webpage or whatever. The prose they use is very politically tainted so it does not appear reliable from an immediate reading.
 * I haven't checked all the sources and references yet, but there might very well be a lot of similar issues. A clue is in the articles prose which has been combed of all words and viewpoints that might even remotely shed a negative light on the Western powers.
 * The explained reasons for erecting the Berlin Wall remains poorly sourced. Perhaps it is true, perhaps not, but whatever the truth is, it requires a better sourcing.

These are just a few (but important) observations from preliminary attempts at improving the article. RhinoMind (talk) 16:22, 26 August 2017 (UTC)


 * Here is a highly credible and appropriate source to be implemented: German History in Documents and Images (GHDI). It includes many first-hand sources. RhinoMind (talk) 00:24, 20 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Regarding the background of the ultimatum, which is poorly explained and unfolded in this wiki-article as is, this source can be used to flesh things out: The Berlin Ultimatum (November 27, 1958) RhinoMind (talk) 00:24, 20 May 2020 (UTC)


 * I would like to second this concern. The block quotation in the "Military stand-off" section cited a source that not only did not contain the quotation, but also did not even mention the words "tank" or "Solovyev". I have found a reliable source for the quotation and added it. Additionally, (and perhaps somewhat pedantically, though I believe it is important) the quotation in the article included an emphasis that is not present in the source.
 * It should be noted however that the original citation for the quote appears both reliable and relevant to the article at large, and so I have not removed it. I believe there may be many other such instances of good but misused citations. Many (but not all) of these citations appear as if they were hastily added after the fact to provide backing to a previously-unsupported statement, without much consideration for the source itself. Gravensilv (talk) 19:41, 26 May 2020 (UTC)


 * Great.
 * I don't see how your observations jeopardizes the concerns I have explained and emphasized. There is a lot of work to be done to improve this article to an acceptable level. RhinoMind (talk) 22:02, 26 May 2020 (UTC)


 * I completely agree, and I did not mean my statement to jeopardize the concerns; on the contrary, it only collaborates them. Gravensilv (talk) 02:30, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

Distances in tank standoff?
"The US tanks turned back towards the checkpoint, stopping an equal distance from it on the American side of the boundary". As far as I can tell from the photographs I have seen, the sector border follows the sidewalk of Zimmerstraße across Friedrichstraße, and the US dozer-equipped M-48A1 tanks were standing immediately behind the white line marking the sector boundary. This seems to contradict the quote? Looking at a map, I'd guess the distance between the two sides' tanks are 50 m-100 m, rather than 100 m-200 m. --Lasse Hillerøe Petersen (talk) 17:15, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

Lucius Clay POV
This entire article is written, with scant sources, as though it means to excuse Lucius Clay's actions and reveal him in a flattering light. It seems pretty overt. Curious for others' thoughts. I'm not a historian qualified enough to correct it, but I am a Wikipedia reader opinionated enough to note it.

80.71.142.35 (talk) 19:01, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

Need new article on 1958-59 crisis
Back on 2019 DavidMCEddy mentioned the importance of the Eisenhower-era crisis of 1958-59. Wikipedia lacks an article on that topic, so I propose to start up a new one: Berlin Crisis of 1958–1959. I will move some of the background there and add mostly new material. Rjensen (talk) 05:34, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

History
Other name of the Berlin crisis 102.221.106.34 (talk) 19:31, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

Wonky Page
Hey, is it just me or is this page formatted really strangely? There seems to be strange quotes and stuff, like the entire military standoff area is really weird, especially about that quote, with the failed verification? I think at LEAST this are needs to be changed, something is off...

Thanks, Dwightol102 (talk) 19:27, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

Dubious: text re 1971 Davy Crockett deployment
Newly added text states: Also, SEC DEF MacNamara [sic] wanted to rush 171 Crocketts to USAREUR in December, 1971

At that time Melvin Laird, was SEC DEF, Robert McNamara (correct spelling) had left office in February 1968, so he could not have had involvement in any such decision. Also, the weapon was retired in 1971, so a 1971 rush deployment is unlikely. Tfdavisatsnetnet (talk) 15:08, 22 March 2022 (UTC)
 * It should also be noted that this section is littered with jargon and abbreviations that do not make sense. It is in need of a cleanup for the layman as well as the above.69.193.60.158 (talk) 18:31, 18 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Regardless of its veracity, I don't see how this assertion has any relevance to an article about the 1961 Berlin Crisis. 2605:A000:BFC0:21:94E6:7356:1FEF:7D78 (talk) 02:24, 11 July 2023 (UTC)