Crisis in Berlin
BRANDT, WILLY
EXCLUSIVE: On November 27, in notes to the Allies which spelled oui by West Berlin's Mayor Willy Brandt, and the one on his threat of November 10, Soviet Premier Niki ta Khrush-page 5 by Harold...
...EXCLUSIVE: On November 27, in notes to the Allies which spelled oui by West Berlin's Mayor Willy Brandt, and the one on his threat of November 10, Soviet Premier Niki ta Khrush-page 5 by Harold Hurwitz, arrived here the day the Soviet chev demanded that Berlin be made a "free city...
...It has been erroneously assumed that our status is derived from the Potsdam Agreement...
...Crisis in Berlin By Willy Brandt Mayor of If est Berlin BERLIN WE BERLINERS were not en tirely surprised by Soviet Prime Minister Nikita Khrushchev's speech on November 10...
...The Ulbricht clique has declared that its immediate goals are to shake confidence in the stability of our economic life, to sow fear and insecurity, and to undermine the prosperous reconstruction of this free city...
...There is a whole bundle of international agreements which establish and guarantee the four-power status of Berlin...
...The notes were delivered...
...These accords and agreements are the basis for a free and democratic way of life in West Berlin...
...we already knew the melody...
...Finally, there are declarations about the legal and actual security of Berlin...
...These were verified and supplemented at the Paris Foreign Ministers Conference during the summer of 1949, and restored unhindered traffic between Berlin and the free world...
...Before that, on September 12...
...They also define this city's position, the condition and the future of the Berlin population...
...There is too much at stake here—for us and for our friends...
...When the Soviets broke up the Control Council for Germany ten years ago and prepared to blockade our city, Stalin's Moscow spokesmen made similar claims and demands...
...This is true today...
...Hence, we concluded that we still have every reason to follow the course of events with very serious concern, and to resist energetically any move December 1, 1958 105...
...They safeguard more than the rights of the Allies to remain in Berlin...
...It requires no em bellishment on my part...
...Ulbricht wants this crisis...
...It further determined that the armed forces of the USSR are to occupy an Eastern Zone with the declared exception of the territory of Berlin, for which a special occupation system was planned...
...They declared that any attack against Berlin, no matter from where it might come, would be treated as an attack against themselves...
...The presence and the supreme authority of the Allies in West Berlin are the basis for everything that has been accomplished here in the interests of the people, for the prosperity of their city under a freely elected city parliament and a . government responsible to the people...
...Above all, I think of the declaration of October 3, 1954, in which the Allies considered the security and welfare of Berlin and the maintenance of their own position in this city as decisive factors for preserving the peace...
...This is an old story, a story without any foundation in law, in justice, or in political reality...
...By announcing that the Soviet Union will "relinquish" its rights in Berlin, and by disputing the rights of the United States, Great Britain and France in Berlin, Khrushchev has identified himself with a set of principles patched together early this year by a German Communist academician and later espoused by Walter Ulbricht...
...It is hard to believe that Khrushchev simply let himself be harnessed to Ulbricht's cart...
...With the Foreign Minister of the Bundesrepublik, I have considered what advice we should give our Allied friends...
...The legal aspects of the question .are clear...
...1944, the London Agreement...
...Berlin is not soft, it will never become weak...
...between the Western powers and the Soviet Union referred to a Berlin territory which would remain under joint Allied occupation...
...And this fact speaks for itself...
...Also of importance are the agreements which successfully ended the blockade of West Berlin in May 1949...
...They boil down to the thesis that since the end of World War II Berlin in its entirety has been part of the Soviet Occupation Zone and, therefore, today belongs to the so-called "German Democratic Republic"—as its capital city...
...But if the Kremlin rulers intended to find out whether Berlin, having become prosperous, has also become soft and weak, they have meanwhile learned better...
...For this bankruptcy has been responsible for a flood of refugees to our city, a flood which he now seeks to dam by building up a psychosis of fear...
...Both, however, clearly present West following article, written exclusively for THE NEW LEADER Berlin's feelings about Moscow's latest demands...
...We agreed that we can rely on the clear declarations and guarantees of the Western powers, and that civic and economic life in West Berlin must go on peacefully...
...he needs it to detract attention from the bankruptcy of his regime in the Soviet Zone...
Vol. 41 • December 1956 • No. 45
