| berlin airlift | |
noun | |
| airlift in 1948 that supplied food and fuel to citizens of west Berlin when the Russians closed off land access to Berlin |
A military operation in the late 1940s that brought food and other needed goods into West Berlin by air after the government of East Germany, which at that time surrounded West Berlin (see Berlin wall), had cut off its supply routes. The United States joined with western European nations in flying the supplies in. The airlift was one of the early events of the cold war.