Photograph showing up to 500,000 West Berliners gathered outside the Schoeneberg Town Hall to celebrate the end of the Berlin Blockade, 12th May 1949. Between April 1948 and May 1949 Josef Stalin, leader of the USSR, imposed a land blockade on supplies from Western Europe to West Berlin. In response the British and American governments organised an enormous airlift to supply food and other essentials to the 2.5 million inhabitants of West Berlin. After a year Stalin conceded defeat and lifted the land blockade.