The Face of Berlin
FISCHER, LOUIS
Traveler's Notebook THE FACE OF BERLIN By Louis Fischer BERLIN "PLEASE," said the man with the wrinkled, worried face, "please tell the American people they must not let Khrushchev close our...
...It tells us we are not alone...
...They nodded yes...
...No," replied the boy, who was about 17...
...1952, 51.3, and so on...
...Communism is not very popular in Poland, and Russia even less so...
...Moscow probably thought West Berlin would panic when Khrushchev announced, in November 1958, that the city, which is as free as Paris, London, or New York, must become a "free city" (that is, exposed to Soviet pressures and unprotected by foreign troops) in six months...
...But more important, it would signify acceptance by the Western powers of the partition of Germany and thereby postpone reunification indefinitely...
...It happens several times a day and we can't be fooled...
...Chorus: "That is the only way to save it...
...ONE EVENING I had dinner at an American journalist's home which is situated not more than a hundred yards from the Soviet zonal boundary...
...Where do you get the West marks...
...I didn't want to leave...
...When Major General Barksdale Hamlett, the U.S...
...You're quite right," I commented...
...What will you do," I asked Hertz, "if Moscow blockades West Berlin again, as it did in 1948...
...The villagers in the Soviet zone, assembled in the church courtyard, sang the first stanza of a hymn...
...In November 1956, she almost lost Hungary...
...K undoubtedly...
...Only they're not tight and don't launder well and have no label in the back...
...No," he replied, "the doctor wouldn't dare...
...The pledge has been kept...
...61.5 per cent in 1956...
...While waiting my turn in a West Berlin drugstore I watched a woman pay in East marks for her medicine...
...WHAT," I ASKED West German Foreign Minister Heinrich von Brentano, "is behind Khrushchev's extension of the time limit for negotiations about West Berlin—first six months, then 12, then 18 or more...
...This building," Dr...
...First American: "So we need time...
...If the Russians take West Berlin we can never get out of this prison...
...But she had written the name of the preparation on a piece of paper and since it was a new drug I was sure she came from a physician who reads West German medical literature...
...Auf Wiedersehen, auf Wiedersehen," they called to one another as the sound faded out...
...Then why," he persisted, "were the Western diplomats in Geneva willing to talk about reducing the number of foreign troops in West Berlin...
...You're East Berliners," I ventured, judging by the quality of their clothing...
...Khrushchev won't try," he assured me...
...Russia's mounting military power and the disunity of the West gave him an opportunity, he presumed, which he chose to exploit...
...The people of West Berlin know that America is their military shield and financial anchor...
...This means that the region is losing a very high proportion of its most valuable and productive men and women...
...As a result, Khrushchev almost lost his Number One position in December 1956...
...the boy retorted...
...Walter Ulbricht is the balding, bearded Stalin of East Germany...
...There are only 11,000 American, British, and French soldiers here and they have never bothered the Russians...
...Despite barbed wire barriers," the villagers were saying, "we are one...
...Second Englishman: "He was acting from strength...
...K's voice had hardly died away when Fritz Berg, the president of the Federation of German Industries, promised publicly that Germany's industries would demonstrate their loyalty to West Berlin by placing 10 per cent more orders in the city in 1959 than in 1958...
...After she left I asked the pharmacist about the transaction...
...Small wonder the dictators of the proletariat would like to shut the escape hatch...
...East Germany lost through flight to the West 6.9 per cent of its physicians and 7.5 per cent of its university and college teaching staffs...
...What West Berliners fear more is "the slow squeeze" by means of terror, espionage, and sabotage...
...The Red Regime is bleeding East Germany white...
...Instead, the West is making all the concessions...
...If Moscow could score a victory over West Germany it would be a feather in Russia's Polish cap and bolster Gomulka's regime...
...Second American: "Yes, and remember that Khrushchev's original statement on West Berlin was made at a Kremlin conference with Polish Premier Gomulka...
...She paid in East marks at the rate of three-and-a-half East marks to one West mark...
...First Englishman: "He thought he could get away with it...
...the girl explained, "they're the rage...
...West Berlin advertises the failure of Communism...
...where identity papers are usually examined, and one can also travel, without inspection or questions, by the S-train which snakes from one end of Berlin to the other and by the U-train, or Underground...
...But it seems pretty clear from Mr...
...The West's defense of West Berlin is no charity...
...55 per cent in 1958...
...1950, 62.2...
...In the evening we exchange them at the bank for West marks...
...West Berlin's unemployment is down—the lowest since the war...
...No," she asserted, "we learn not to hear...
...This...
...Many hospitals over there have been recruiting physicians from Bulgaria...
...You understand," he murmured, "that West Berlin is the only open gate in the entire Iron Curtain...
...The Kremlin will only interpret this as a sign of weakness...
...We are defending ourselves...
...The East German villagers joined in...
...Sometimes we get a rush of East Berlin customers who want the most ordinary patent medicines which are apparently not available there...
...As often as possible, therefore, I kept my pocket transistor on...
...Anyway we are not worried...
...The West German army is being reorganized...
...S6 those who remain are coddled...
...Traveler's Notebook THE FACE OF BERLIN By Louis Fischer BERLIN "PLEASE," said the man with the wrinkled, worried face, "please tell the American people they must not let Khrushchev close our escape hatch to freedom...
...What the spirit binds together no foreign government shall sunder...
...We live with our families in the Russian sector and still go to school...
...What is the sense of cutting their strength...
...Blue jeans...
...We also had the world congress of city mayors here...
...That's why Moscow wants to shut it...
...Will the West...
...According to the official figures given me, only two per cent of West Berlin's bank deposits were transferred to West Germany immediately after Khrushchev's threatening speech...
...Escapees...
...And so on and so on, endlessly...
...The cost—$231,707—will be borne by West Germany's radio networks...
...1951...
...I'm ready," he shouted back...
...Second American: "So everybody says...
...A West German station broadcast a church service...
...I understood doctors were a privileged class in the Soviet zone," I remarked...
...a Communist stronghold...
...The Soviet villagers opened the recitation of the Lord's Prayer: "Our Father," they intoned...
...He looked me up and down and said, "You're an American...
...I kept hoping that Germany would be reunited and I could keep my position and home...
...The total number of escapees registered in the last 10 years is 2,260,000...
...He wants to nail down East Germany by seizing West Berlin...
...We adults enjoy it too...
...Later, on investigation, I found the statement correct...
...I had stopped him in an almost deserted street in the Communist sector of Berlin to ask for directions...
...Presently the pastor announced that he would play a tape recording made just a week ago in a German village cut in two by the Iron Curtain...
...Hallowed be Thy name," from the Soviet side...
...He smiled at me indulgently...
...We revel in such events...
...We came over to buy blue jeans...
...The zone is suffering from a shortage of physicians because in 1958 alone nearly 1,200 escaped to the West...
...I took the U-train at Louis FISCHER, a distinguished reporter for 35 years, is author of Russia Revisited and other books...
...This exchange continued until the entire prayer had been said...
...I was earning a good salary and had a fine apartment and a car...
...There are many legitimate crossings for autos and pedestrian...
...he explained...
...K hopes to take West Berlin before then...
...AH, THIS International Film Festival makes us feel good," exclaimed the West Berlin editor...
...By 1961, it will be completely re-equipped and prepared to use tactical atomic weapons in order to outweigh, together with other NATO forces, the 22 or more Soviet divisions in East Germany...
...He is the sixth academic scholar of the institution to flee in the last year...
...At first the Communist party opposed them and called them products of capitalist decay...
...AT A WEST GERMAN dinner party, a well-dressed man was introduced to me as a physician newly arrived from the East German city of Magdeburg...
...stanza, refrain...
...In some years the share of the 18 to 45 year-olds was much higher: in 1949, 63.7...
...Nevertheless, the propaganda must influence you," I suggested...
...K. wants a summit conference to increase his prestige at home...
...For the East German government, 1958 was in one respect the blackest year, because of the exodus of professional people, intellectuals and students...
...At this rate the country is headed for disaster...
...Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were swallowed up by Russia and not a word is heard about them...
...So we came here to buy...
...This may be Khrushchev's ultimate aim...
...Don't you know...
...First American: "Do you believe Mr...
...West Berlin is an island entirely surrounded by Communist territory...
...Those are the bells," the pastor commented, "of the old church now situated in the Soviet zone...
...I smiled back...
...It's a death sentence, a suspended death sentence," he replied...
...The sound of Mr...
...A woman came out of a court-yard and the man walked away briskly...
...Our teenagers have a wonderful time besieging the hotels for autographs from Sophia Loren, Rita Hayworth, David Niven, Esther Williams and others...
...Yes...
...The boy and girl smiled at the similarity of our tastes...
...Of the refugees, the percentage of those workers who are abandoning the workers' paradise was 54.7 per cent in 1949...
...But I think the chief consideration was military...
...Some middle-sized towns already lack surgeons and medical specialists and have to transport seriously ill patients to the larger cities...
...It use to be called "The Red Wedding...
...Whether they carry it out in six months or two years wouldn't make much difference to the Russians...
...Nowhere in the world, outside their own countries, are American—and British and French—soldiers more popular...
...That would confirm him as a successful dictator...
...The Poles are anti-German, too...
...The moment you retreat before the Russian he presses you still harder...
...Loud hand-clapping...
...Incidentally, I fail to fathom their system of distribution...
...This would undermine West German faith in the West and conceivably multiply the number of Germans who favor a German deal with Moscow...
...More applause...
...TRAFFIC BETWEEN East and West Berlin is generally unobstructed...
...First Englishman: "It is my considered opinion that what Khrushchev wants most is Western recognition of East Germany...
...Noticing two teenagers having frankfurters and Coca-Colas I bought the same combination and joined them...
...Willi Boelcke, of the German Central Archive in Potsdam, has escaped to West Berlin...
...I am as much involved as you are...
...West Berlin also applies the same "1:1" system to both its museums and exhibitions...
...He may wish to lull America to sleep with peace-peace lullabies, the sort of game Mikoyan and Kozlov played on their visits to the U.S...
...STOCKING MANUFACTURER Heckei of Zwoenitz in the Aue district has fled to the West," a West German newspaper reported...
...Did she bring a prescription...
...These, it is estimated, would bring the grand total up to 2,800,000...
...The poster was marked "1:1"—one East mark for one West mark...
...Besides, Eisenhower, de Gaulle and Adenauer have declared that we will not yield an inch, and while the annexation of West Berlin would raise Khrushchev's stock at home, a war over Berlin or even a grave crisis would sharply reduce it...
...But some refugees go directly to the homes of their West German relatives...
...West Berlin is the linchpin of the entire Western alliance...
...You arrange it...
...I believe, is the chief reason why thousands of engineers, architects, technicians, scientists, professors and physicians are streaming westward...
...This sunny Saturday morning, every reference to the United States was enthusiastically cheered by the neighborhood crowd of workingclass men, women and children who lined the perimeter of the foundation pit...
...Radio Free Berlin is erecting a new 100 kilowatt medium-wave transmitter which will be heard throughout the Soviet zone of Germany...
...The flow is so great that the Soviet zone is really being hurt...
...Oh," the girl began, "conditions are a little better than last year, but life is so-o-o dull, and I'm tired of harangues in school about Russia's achievements...
...But Berlin is different...
...PAUL HERTZ, West Berlin's economic administrator, invited me to the foundation-stone laying of a 12-story school and dormitory for technical students located on Trift Street in the district of Wedding...
...That is true," he agreed, "and you must be wondering why I didn't stay...
...DON'T WORRY about us," said the taxi driver who was taking me across West Berlin...
...We had arrived at my destination...
...the Zoo station a block from my West Berlin hotel, rode to Alexander Square in East Berlin, walked about for several hours, and returned the same way...
...That would reinforce the hollow Ulbricht regime...
...This is one of the best ways of starting a conversation with a stranger...
...The 1948-49 Anglo-American airlift which broke the blockade made the Soviets the laughing stock of Europe...
...If it fell into Soviet hands the effect on NATO could be drastic...
...They are a warning to Moscow to keep hands off because we belong to the West...
...Those were the answering bells of the new church recently completed in that part of the village which belongs to the West German Republic...
...Stanza, refrain...
...It enables many thousands of East Berliners to see good films and plays in the Western sector...
...I think he would be followed by the other Communist leaders who know too much about popular sentiment to remain after the Red Army goes...
...These concrete proofs of support have stiffened West Berlin's morale...
...True," he agreed, "but the Hungarian people rebelled and the West didn't move a finger...
...Khrushchev and Ulbricht is the age of the fugitives...
...Who art in Heaven," the West Germans continued...
...But West Berlin did not panic...
...Their former neighbors sang the refrain...
...Certain cinemas showing high grade pictures, not murder mysteries or sex stuff, admit us on our East marks even though the East mark is worth only 28 per cent of the West mark...
...From 1952 to the end of 1958, 59.5 per cent of all recorded refugees from East Germany registered at the reception center in Marienfelde in West Berlin...
...WHAT WOULD HAPPEN," I asked an East Berlin professor who sat in a West Berlin cafe reading Western newspapers, "if the Soviet army withdrew from Germany...
...Second American: "Gromyko has tied these extensions to the recognition of East Germany...
...The remainder reported to ont of two camps—Giessen and Uelzen—in West Germany...
...When he began speaking in German a murmur of approval went up from the spectators...
...Second American: "All these factors motivated Mr...
...Hertz declared in his speech, "could not have been constructed without American money...
...It was Sunday morning...
...I don't know," he replied, "but they had better take Ulbricht with them...
...Finally, both congregations sang the closing hymn in unison...
...I'm not convinced...
...Second American: "Decidedly...
...But so many of our teenagers took to wearing them that the Party gave in and began manufacturing them in the Soviet zone...
...She wagged her pony tail in the negative...
...I'm an American journalist," I stated...
...Forty-four nations, from Argentina to Indonesia, from India to France, from America to Japan, have sent their films and stars...
...What small country would trust the West if we allowed 2.200.000 West Berliners to be submerged by Communism...
...Radio stations of both East and West constantly bark back and forth...
...and sometimes, at night, Moscow brings up its ponderous radio artillery in German and English...
...I went to see Une Vie (A Woman's Life), a story by Guy de Maupassant, with Maria Schell in the title role...
...The uglier truth for Messrs...
...In 1958, 32.6 per cent of the population of Soviet Germany was between the ages of 18 and 45...
...Khrushchev's repeated attacks on reunification and from Moscow's attempt to seize West Berlin that Russia is not quitting Germany yet, and I did not wish my children to grow up under Russian rule...
...I asked the two teenagers as they munched their frankfurters...
...In any case, if he wants a summit conference we ought to make him pay for it in advance...
...Even this astonishing figure tells only half the story...
...55.8 per cent in 1952...
...But in the same year the percentage of refugees in the same age bracket was 47.9...
...Guenther Binternagel, one of the top functionaries of the East German Ministry of Education, a member of the Communist party, has come West...
...commanding officer in West Berlin, was introduced, he received an ovation...
...He glanced around furtively...
...In the same week: "Dr...
...First American: "If that is the case, why is Moscow giving us time by extending the negotiation period from six to 12 to 18 months and more...
...Since 1948," he added, "the United States government has granted Berlin four billion marks [$952 million...
...He might get into trouble...
...In that one year...
...The Western worshippers began rendering another hymn...
...We have stored up a year's supply of coal and flour...
...You ought to get into striped pants and go to Geneva," I said in parting...
...Second American: "In October 1956, Russia almost lost Poland through the bloodless Gonmlka revolution...
...I knew Wedding in the 1920s and '30s...
...By that time I was so hungry I dashed into a stand-up cafeteria near the Zoo station where customers eat at circular, breast-high counters accomodating three persons...
...I inquired...
...We're also seeing a movie," the boy added...
...If you had come here before dark you could have seen the Russian guards from our upstairs window...
...I exclaimed...
...Other bells pealed...
...First American: "You think therefore that we can save West Berlin by not yielding...
...Most of the money was soon returned...
...INCESSANT Cold War battles crackle through the Berlin air...
...The Federal German government at Bonn gives West Berlin an annual subsidy of more than seven million marks for the purpose...
...After-d inner discussion over coffee: First American: "Why do you think Khrushchev started this Berlin mess last November...
...Church bells rang...
...How are things over there...
...And West Germany's new president was elected here—over Moscow's protest...
...His address was interrupted several times by audience applause and when he finished he got another ovation...
...57.8...
...The people are brave but they hunger for encouragement...
...We Berliners stand firm...
...First Englishman: "I suspect Herr Ulbricht must have reported to the Kremlin on the spread of the West Berlin cancer...
...We have never let you down," I reminded him...
Vol. 42 • September 1959 • No. 34
