How is it that West Berlin was in the Russian Part of Germany? Did the Russians give up that part of

Did the Russians give up that part of the country after the berlin airlift? I mean what did that mean? When you left West Berlin you still weren't in free lands? WHERE WAS THE WALL through the city or through wherever the Russian part of Germany ended? Be specific. Be long. Person who answers the most of the above questions gets it.
1.How is it that West Berlin was in the Russian Part of Germany?

The Division of Germany and Berlin into 2 parts was a result of the Yalta Conference.

Directly after the war Germany was split into 4 sectors, each one administered by one partner of the Allied Forces. There was a French sector, an American Sector, a British Sector and a Russian sector. The borders of these sectors were pre-agreed on, thus a town may have been first conquered by the Brits or the Americans but got later turned over to the Russians. As the capital Berlin got split into 4 sectors too.

What became West-Berlin were the combined American, French and British sectors of Berlin. They were an island in the sector occupied by the Soviets.

2. Did the Russians give up that part of the country after the berlin airlift?

No, the Russians never had it. That was the whole point of the airlift.

The Russians wanted all of Berlin, so they closed all roads, shipping lines and rail tracks into West-Berlin to force the issue.

The American government refuse to give in to the Russians (this was the Cold War already) and they started the airlift to keep the inhabitants of West-Berlin from starving.

3. When you left West Berlin you still weren't in free lands?

When you left West Berlin by car or train you had to go through the territory of the GDR. There were three official corridors that people could use to travel, either by car, train or or plane. If you went by car you had to use a certain road (autobahn) inside one of these corridors of travel and were not allowed to stop until you reached the border to West Germany.

The roads where roughly under the air corridors. Today they are the A2, the A9 and another autobahn, the A 24 I think.

4. WHERE WAS THE WALL through the city or through wherever the Russian part of Germany ended?

Essentially there where 2 walls - one wall encirling West-Berlin (Berlin Wall) and another wall (the Iron Curtain) between West Germany and East Germany.

You can find a map of the former GDR (East Germany) here:

More info on the inner German border:

And here is a map of Berlin's districts:

And a map how Berlin was divided:

You can roughly see how the districts match up. Note that today's administrative district Kreuzberg-Friedrichshain was 2 districts then. Kreuzberg was in the west, Friedrichshain in the east.

And here is a map of the Berlin Wall and the crossing points:

Since foreigners were only allowed to cross through at Checkpoint Charlie it is easy to understand how that spot became so famous.

That you have trouble finding traces of the Berlin Wall in today's Berlin only shows how tragic and unnatural the division was. Before the wall Berlin was one city, and did not take long for it to become one city again.

The most curious point was probably the train station Friedrichstrasse. There people of West Berlin and East Berlin were seperated by no more than a comperatively thin wall. The border ran right through the tracks. It was the termination point for the S-Bahn in East Berlin as well as West Berlin. At one end of the tracks was West Berlin, on the other East. Also the U-Bahn (Underground) U6 from West Berlin passed East German territory here. When you rode the U-Bahn you could see ghost stations - stations built before the war but now in East German territory and heavily guarded by East German security. The trains had to pass them bc this iwas how the tracks ran - through East Berlin. But when reunification came it took them only a few days to open up all the walled up entrances.