Germany-East and West:

...Many Germans are not yet aware of the changes looming on the horizon...

...Probably no one is actually starving, yet food is in short supply...

...When the vote on Adenauer's re-election was taken in the Bundestag, however, he barely escaped defeat in the first ballot, receiving only seven votes more than the absolute majority...

...And what troubles me at present is that the descendants of the very men whom my father led to victory in a republican revolution more than a century ago are now being badgered and oppressed by their Russian overlords...

...And the results of the General Elections have strengthened this feeling...

...Every day it is drummed home that in the East Zone the workers and farmers have a good life in comparison with the workers and farmers of the capitalist countries...

...If a letter submitted for postal transport mentions any difficult conditions in the Soviet Zone, the letter will be destroyed and, in addition, the writer may be punished...

...But these material difficulties are less burdensome to the citizens of the Eastern Zone than the spiritual troubles which they are forced to bear...

...The chief means employed in this campaign are lies and the most improbable sort of distorting...

...They hope by this means to quiet the fears of Westerners and, in the end, to be able the more easily to subdue them as a part of their plan to conquer the world...

...Since 1947 I have visited my relatives in the East Zone seven times and have remained with them three or four weeks on each occasion...

...Yet the feeling that the necessary leadership is lackingengendered by the August 13 East German coup and by disappointment with the hesistant response to it, not only in the West but in Bonn —has rarely been as widespread as during the past six months...

...Vegetables and fruit are especially hard to secure...

...I always laugh when journalists from foreign countries, or Members of the British House of Commons or American Congressmen allow themselves to be led about the Soviet Zone by distinguished local Communists, and then conveniently come to the conclusion that conditions are not at all as unpleasant as they are sometimes represented...

...Among the candidates to succeed Adenauer, too, Schroeder is certainly the man most acceptable to all reactionary forces in big business and in the coalition Government...

...Though a Christian Democrat, he has made it abundantly clear that he favors an all-party government and a strong Berlin stand, and that on these two issues at least he feels closer to Brandt than to Adenauer...

...His equivocations, his concentration on the campaign rather than on the fate of the nation, and his lack of warmth when dealing with the Berlin crisis lost the CDU many votes which in other circumstances it could have mustered with relative ease...

...But subsequent local elections in Hamburg showed that the FDP, by entering an Adenauer government, has already lost most of its new followers...

...So, on the average, the conveniences give more trouble than help...

...Aerials, which are necessary for the reception of Western TV broadcasts, are removed from the roofs...

...This is an important development...

...That was the Revolution of 1848...

...To sum up the whole matter, it may be said that the State attempts with all available methods to turn its people (Young Pioneers, Pioneers, military companies and, finally, the Army) into fanatical, unreasoning fighters for the Communist idea and the world revolution...

...In addition to hearty Christmas and New Year's wishes, he sent me some real news about conditions across the border...

...The inhabitants of the Zone understand, of course, that most of the information which is dealt out to them by newspapers and radio consists of lies and deception...

...True, he has pledged to lay down the burdens of office on some unspecified date in the next four years, to hand them over to his (still unnamed) successor in time for the next Chancellor to become acquainted with the job before the 1965 General Elections...

...unless nature intervenes, he will stand at the helm as long as he chooses...

...This means that at least 20 CDU members of Parliament, in addition to those FDP men unwilling to accept Adenauer, must either have voted against him or abstained...

...In Western lands, according to the eternally repeated tale, the workers and farmers are pitifully exploited and oppressed by big business...

...At the same time, the CDU proved unable to win them back...

...The unfortunate people who live under Walter Ulbricht's regime are really to be pitied...

...Now they are trapped like animals...

...We and our East Zone relatives are therefore very careful and reticent about what we put into correspondence designed to pass over the line which divides the two Germanies...

...He has "tamed" the Free Democrats, who in the first excitement of their electoral upswing thought they were strong enough to dictate terms to the CDU...

...Thus, there are forces standing in reserve for the day, long-awaited and long-dreaded, when the man who has shaped Germany's destiny since the formation of the Bonn Republic is no longer in a position to do so...

...But one of my relatives lives on the other side of the border in West Germany, and during the past 16 years he has from time to time visited our family inside the Russian Zone...

...In fact, what is happening here does not involve any conscious political reaction at all...

...The least I can do for the benefit of people on both sides of the Atlantic is to translate and publish it word for word...

...Some observers pointed out this danger long ago, and in the last few months the incoherence of the infra-structure beneath Adenauer's personal rule has become obvious...

...Nevertheless, it is now clear that the "Adenauer Era" is drawing to its close...

...These visits have given me a comprehensive view of the methods of the Communist rulers...

...It is important to report, too, that a good many other letters and parcels are opened in the East Zone and strictly controlled...

...The German Constitution gives the Head of State very limited powers, but in periods characterized by a deficiency of leadership he has many opportunities to exert his influence...

...And the longer the struggle lasts, the more disintegrating will its effect be on the leading party...

...In regular trade schools, weekends are devoted to military drill...

...Socialist insistence that the dangers facing Germany today only can be efficiently dealt with by an "Emergency Government" which includes all three major parties also has won a good deal of public support...

...A realistic idea of the conditions of life in the East Zone can be developed only if one lives there for a considerable time with relatives or intimate friends and has had some opportunity to discuss matters in small and intimate groups without the least danger of spying or interference...

...The great results achieved by the Communist peoples are constantly emphasized...

...For the first time in a decade, the Chancellor has encountered real opposition not only outside his party but inside it as well...

...No inhabitant of the Zone would risk telling a visitor, especially a foreigner, anything unpleasant about the Communist system...

...Sooner or later West German democracy— young, underdeveloped, partially atrophied by the curious lifelessness of its most important institutions —will have to learn to work on its own...

...Here it is: "In your last letter you reported that our dear cousin living in the Russian Zone described conditions over there as not unfavorable...

...Some of the blame for this is attributed to the Government's putting all its eggs in the NATO basket...

...Germany-West and East 'Der Alte' on the Decline By F R. Allemann Bonn Konrad Adenauer, who last week celebrated his 86th birthday, is back in Bonn's Palais Schaumburg heading his fourth Government after an unbroken spell of 12 years in office...

...The people have lost most of their illusions about German reunification (without, incidentally, becoming particularly restless or worried...

...My most recent information indicates that lately the East Zone government has been doing its best to jam these sources of true and useful information...

...Even more typical of the electorate's mood in September was the swing toward the Free Democrats...

...Of course, Adenauer is not a man who worries very much about what others think...

...Every picture-book, every song, every fairy tale is revised along the lines laid down by Communist theory...

...Almost all of the women of the Soviet Zone are occupied in regular jobs outside their homes, and nearly all of the children are turned over to the kindergarten at a very early age...

...We know that the country is divided and that a part of it is ruled by the Russians...

...Hundreds of years ago they were highly developed Europeans who looked down on the Russians as wild men...

...Their letters convey very little about what goes on...

...Once more he has succeeded in keeping the Social Democratic party (SPD) out of the Cabinet...

...It can perhaps best be described as a haze of sentiment and resentment, an uncomfortable recognition that things are not going too well and that the steady upward line of national recovery has for some reason begun to wobble...

...In this way, they have sharply improved their chances of inheriting a large part of the support the FDP has forfeited...

...It is also distressing that so few Americans seem to understand what is happening in Germany...

...For the first time the Social Democrats, with Berlin's Mayor Willy Brandt as their candidate for Chancellor, gained more than 36 per cent of the total vote...

...For not only did Adenauer's Christian Democratic Union party (CDU) lose the Parliamentary majority it had enjoyed since 1953, but it was forced to form a government with the Free Democratic Party (FDP), which scored a remarkable victory at the polls by giving voters the impression it would never join forces with the Old Man...

...Careful observance of these rules will give some assurance that the communications involved will actually reach the foreign correspondent for whom they were intended...

...It all came to nothing, of course...

...In school the children are forced to promise that they will never listen to Western broadcasts...

...Unless quickly checked by strong leadership, any new economic or foreign policy reverse could set off a chain of serious problems...

...If Adenauer's office suddenly became vacant, it would be the President who would propose the name of his successor to the Bundestag...

...I would like to remind my American readers that the people subjected to this oppression are not illiterate and uncivilized wild creatures who have no feelings about such matters...

...But most of us seem to take for granted that there is nothing especially bad about this...

...In addition, by agreeing in principle to resign from office some time during the present Bundestags four-year term, the Chancellor has placed himself in the position of a "lame duck...

...In previous election years Adenauer's personality was the CDU's surest asset...

...It should be stressed, however, that it would be quite wrong to interpret that reaction as a revival of "nationalism" or "neutralism...

...Living for many months in the East Zone has made me feel quite certain that its leaders do not believe in permanent coexistence with the West...

...Many of his past successes have been won by going straight against the mood of the public, and he appears confirmed in his disdain of those who resist him because they almost always give in meekly once he turns on the pressure...

...They thus established a strong position from which to challenge the CDU in 1965...

...Behind a scene still dominated by the towering figure of the Old Man, the struggle among those eager to take his place is bound to sharpen steadily...

...But "der Alte" will decide exactly when to redeem this pledge...

...in the last General Elections he seemed to have lost much of his magnetism...

...The period of adjustment has, in fact, already begun...

...In contrast, the Russians are pictured as peace-and-progress-loving people and are described as the possessors of every sort of virtue and charm...

...They find temporary coexistence useful to put Western leaders in an approachable mood...

...Yesterday I received a Christmas letter from my West German cousin...

...They are forced to keep the rules of this rigid system by the ever-present swarm of public functionaries...

...For too long a time, the CDU —its party machinery as well as its Parliamentary group—has been content to serve as a docile instrument of the Chancellor, a kind of prolonged arm of the Government...

...The Old Man is still there, but behind his broad back the new era is beginning to take shape...

...To see this crisis in its true perspective, one has to look beyond Bonn and its charmed circle into the present mood of the German people and the international position of the Federal Republic...

...He has administered a crushing blow to the ambitions and prestige of his would-be "crownprince" and hidden rival, Ludwig Erhard...

...School books, newspapers and glaring posters hammer home to the people that for the first time in history East Germany has free workers and farmers...

...Finally, he has pushed through his favorite young man, Schroeder, who will run the Foreign Office with all the efficiency and lack of imagination of an old-style Prussian bureaucrat...

...The Socialists, on the other hand, remained aloof from the sordid maneuvers that preceded the formation of the coalition, and kept firmly to its recently developed moderate line...

...F. R. Allemann, the editor of Der Monat, is The New Leader's correspondent in Bonn...

...Things in West Germany will never again be quite what they were prior to the nation-wide balloting last September 17...

...But one can already sense a growing feeling of insecurity behind the facade of a booming economy...

...In such a situation, he would use his restricted powers to the limit in order to bring about what he considers best for Germany...

...There he took the U.S...

...It was only after being subjected to great pressure that Luebke agreed to approve Schroeder's appointment, and even then he did so reluctantly...

...The Right-wing group, which did better than ever before, profited heavily from voters who turned their backs on the CDU but were unwilling to vote for the SPD...

...Reading a Soviet Zone newspaper is liable to make one skeptical of one's sanity...

...So it is always wise for the writer of a letter designed for a foreign land to mention a few things which can be praised and, especially, not to find fault...

...Nor has this pressure endeared the new Administration to the tenacious and self-willed Head of State...

...His predecessor, Theodor Heuss, was rather reluctant to take an independent stand in public on topical issues, but during the formation of Adenauer's fourth Administration Luebke displayed a remarkable tendency to interpret his own competence in a more active way...

...A part of this training consists of preaching the most impossible sort of hate for the U.S...

...True, they now have household conveniences in the East Zone which are available to a limited extent, but most of them are of a poor quality and repair parts are difficult to come by...

...And so ends this sober and straightforward account of life under the Communists in East Germany...

...Now with regard to those agricultural machines of which pur cousin spoke in his letter...

...The Chancellor also ran into serious difficulty while seeking approval of former Interior Minister Gerhard Schroeder as Foreign Minister...

...To be sure, of the two dozen Christian Democratic Bundestag deputies sworn to keep Adenauer out and back Minister of Economics Ludwig Erhard as his successor, only one man openly came forward at the CDU Parliamentary Group's dissusion of whether to give in to the FDP or to stand by the Old Man...

...As soon as the children reach school age, they are organized in the Young Pioneers...

...And President Luebke, a quietspoken, wiry gentleman who is invariably described simply as "honest," possesses an independent mind that should not be underestimated...

...He seems unshaken by the many weeks of hectic haggling required to form the present coalition, undaunted by his own age and utterly unresigned to assuming the title of Elder Statesman...

...While he would certainly not propose anyone unacceptable to the majority in Parliament, he has many means of shaping its will...

...It is true that in recent years a good many such machines have been bought and made available to East German farmers...

...They try, therefore, to listen to Western radio and television...

...The better products are reserved for export...

...constitution as his model and did what he could to turn his part of Germany into a republic...

...All of this involves endless tirades against the West...

...My father was the leader of the uprising in his part of the old Vogtland, and when the time came to draw up a constitution, he was sent to the convention...

...To a certain extent, too, the SPD has found a highly placed ally in Bonn, President Luebke...

...In 1848 they voted for a republic and in 1962 they Uve under a dictatorship...

...If the present Government is weaker than any that have gone before it, if the Chancellor's stature has visibly diminished and there are cracks showing in the German political structure, this does not necessarily mean that democracy here is in jeopardy...

...What has developed, therefore, is a dangerous psychological situation...

...The never-ending political pressure, the constant policing and spying, and the limiting of personal freedom are the burdens which the people find most objectionable...

...This plan sounds all right, except for the fact that there are far too few machines and so it is necessary to keep them in use on weekdays, Sundays and, if it is at all possible, at night—with the help of floodlights...

...In addition to all of this, there is the fact that the people are given no choice...

...There is very little to praise...

...The Western powers are represented as warmongers and militarists...

...and West Germany...

...the natives are offered only the inferior goods...

...Still, there is no denying that the struggles which produced these victories have weakened Adenauer's authority, and that the opposition to him in his own camp not only continues to exist but is waiting for the right moment to come forward again...

...there is a half-conscious fear, a vague tendency toward distrust arising out of an inarticulate but widespread malaise...

...Schroeder's appointment to the Cabinet post was opposed not only by the Berlin Christian Democrats (who accused him of being "soft" on Berlin) but also by Federal President Heinrich Luebke...

...Now that it has to make up its mind about whom it wants to put in control after Adenauer, its power of decision, lacking superior guidance, has dwindled to a dangerously low point...

...What is more, it appears that this fall's government crisis has been solved in a very provisional way...

...It is all very far away and, anyhow, it was an inevitable result of the last war...

...I am convinced that every distinguished foreigner is, without his knowledge or consent, constantly watched and controlled and is allowed to communicate only with persons who will give favorable reports...

...They are unwilling to put up a strong fight even for Berlin though they are concerned about losing this outpost through Allied passivity...

...With a refined system and carefully worked-out organization, they have set out to lead the people, most of all the young people, into Communism...

...Good consumer goods and factory products are generally difficult to come by...

...If Americans had a truer picture of the East German situation, they would be less patient and easygoing about it...

...I still have cousins over there who are descendants of the 1848 republicans...

...At each successive stage, as they grow older, they are inducted into a suitable Pioneer organization where they leam appropriate Communist theories and are given military training consonant with their age and ability...

...But the farmers are not able to buy the machines and control their use...

...He has written for Encounter and other journals...

...He knows precisely what is going on...

...Somehow, they feel, the tide is running against Bonn...

...On the contrary, the Government will establish a machine-center for six or eight villages, and this central lending-station provides the machines to the individual farmers or to a neighborhood cooperative...

...He explained, for example, that all sorts of farm machinery had been made available to him and that he and his family were getting along very well...

...In connection with this account, I can make the following remarks: Every letter which leaves the Eastern Zone for a foreign country is strictly censored, particularly letters intended for the U.S., Britain or any other country definitely lined up with the West...

...Indeed, the Chancellor may even believe he has done very well in this latest test of will and nerves...

...Weaned away from responsibility and self-reliance, faction-ridden and nearly paralyzed by its present leader's stern paternalism, it has payed for a decade of stability with an utter loss of vitality...

...Under these circumstances, great care is exercised to make sure that exactly the right notions are implanted in the children's minds...

...Behind the Wall By William E. Bohn Along time ago I wrote a column about "My Father's German Revolution...

...I could go on and on with this report about conditions in Germany's East Zone, but it would mean merely the piling up of more and more unpleasantness...