Western Berlin vote 

• 1948 
• Milians, Max P. 
• Drawing 
• Historical item 

5632947

Drawings / paintings

Western Berlin vote

37 x 29 cm

1948

Original editorial cartoon on card in pen, ink and crayon, 1948, syndicated to a number of newspapers, shows a group of West Berliners with ‘86.2% vote’ facing up to the USSR in the form of Stalin. In June 1948 West Berlin was cut off from the western zones of Germany by the Berlin Blockade. The western allies responded with the Berlin Airlift. Elections were held in West Berlin during the Blockade, and in December 1948 there was an 86.2% turn-out of those eligible to vote, nearly 65% of these voting for representatives of the SPD, the social-democrats. This was a direct rebuff to Stalin, whose ‘intimidation & terrorism’ of West Berlin have ‘boomeranged’ on him. It was clear that the people of West Berlin wanted nothing to do with him and the East German state he was creating around them. Card size 37 x 29 cm (14 x 11.5 inch), image size 30 x 26 cm, signed lower right with nine zeros as underline. In very good condition.