Danger Zone: Us Clandestine Reconnaissance Operations Along the West Berlin Air Corridors, 1945-1990 Wright Kevin

Divided in two for decades between the late 1940s and early 1990s, Germany was the hottest 'battlefield' of the Cold War. Even more so, one third of East Germany was under the control of the Armed Forces of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and housed several dozens of major air and ground units.On the ground, the city of West Berlin - situated in the center of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) - and the three occupation zones controlled by the USA, Great Britain, and France, was connected to the outside world only via tightly controlled railways, waterways or autobahns. Its western part was dotted by dozens of major military facilities of the reconstituted national armed forces and those of the NATO allies, foremost the USA, Great Britain and France.

However, in the air, three Aerial Corridors connected it with West Germany.Far away from high-profile