The first faculty-led program that KU's School of Engineering has led in about five years and intended for sophomore-level engineering majors, the course “Logistics in Berlin: Optimization and the Cold War” aimed to teach both the mathematics of logistics, and an example historical context in which logistics was vital to success in geopolitics. The history of divided Berlin, 1945-1989, is a fascinating story of a “political island”: a city surrounded by a wall, maintained by Allied forces and constrained by the Soviet Empire. The Allies only were able to access West Berlin through three narrow corridors, by land and by air, and so the logistics of supply became paramount to the continued Allied presence there. This class taught the mathematics behind optimal supply chains, scheduling and planning strategies, and constrained logistics, which military and civilian planners used to keep the population of Berlin supported and independent of East Germany. Mathematical topics included linear and nonlinear programming, formulation of scheduling and planning problems, and discrete structures. The course included visits to many Berlin-area sites connected to the Cold War period, including Checkpoint Charlie, Potsdam and the “Bridge of Spies”, the Berlin Wall Memorial, and Gatow airport, used in the famous Berlin Airlift.
