The Airlift: Victories, Myths and the Berlin Blockade
“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.”
North America Title: SWEET VICTORY
UK Publisher: The History Press
New York Publisher: Pegasus Books
Published: Autumn 2025
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The Airlift tells the story of how airmen who had spent the war dropping bombs on Berlin now risked their lives dropping chocolate bars, and how Germans looked to the skies not with dread and hatred but with hope and admiration.
Through this deeply human lens, Dr Pearson reveals how new battlelines were formed; the Berlin Airlift wrote the playbook of the Cold War and it still influences Western thinking and Western diplomacy with Russia to this day.
This is not a standard military history; The Airlift uses extensive archives and interviews to interweave everyday characters’ tales into an extraordinary story. They include 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.
By uncovering untapped sources in both German and Anglo-American archives, Dr Pearson gives a unique and textured portrait of a city during the Cold War’s first major conflict through the lives of real individuals.
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