The rationing system was not simple to administer. West Berlin had been divided administratively even before the blockade into sectors corresponding to the occupying powers, and the city government was itself contested. The Soviet-backed authorities attempted to extend their authority over the whole city; the Western-aligned city government, led by Ernst Reuter, refused to recognize that authority. Reuter became, during the blockade, the most visible symbol of West Berlin’s resistance: a Social Democrat who had served the city for decades and who articulated, to West Berliners and to the watching world, what the blockade meant.
His most famous speech came on September 9, 1948, when approximately 300,000 Berliners gathered near the ruins of the Reichstag building in a protest against Soviet pressure. Reuter spoke in German to the crowd and, by broadcast, to the world. His central appeal was to the Western Allies: he asked them to look at this city and not abandon it. The gathering was spontaneous in the sense that no occupying power organized it, though the city government supported it. It was also a demonstration of something the Western Allies needed to see: that West Berliners were willing to publicly stake their claim to the Western side of the Cold War divide.
The Soviet authorities attempted several times to extend their authority over West Berlin during the blockade. Soviet-backed newspapers, broadcasting, and political organizations operated in the Western sectors throughout the blockade period. The Western powers worked to maintain separate institutions: the existing city government, West Berlin’s newspapers, and the cultural and civic organizations that functioned in their sectors. This was not simply a matter of ideology. It was a practical contest over which institutions would govern which aspects of daily life for two million people.