WHAT TO DO ABOUT BERLIN
Warburg, James P.
WHAT TO DO ABOUT BERLIN by JAMES P. WARBURG THE explosive situation in Berlin, which has threatened the peace of Europe and the world for the past fourteen years, did not come about because...
...That the publicly owned parts of the 185 square miles comprised in the Western sectors, together with buildings, facilities, and other improvements thereon, shall be acquired by the German Democratic Republic either through purchase from the existing organs of public ownership or through exchange for some suitable part of its East German territory contiguous to the Federal Republic of Germany...
...Three—That if, within the ten-year period, the two German states shall decide to unite, the Federal Republic of Germany shall be released from the NATO alliance and the German Democratic Republic shall be released from the Warsaw Pact, while all foreign troops shall be withdrawn from German soil, provided that a reunited Germany shall voluntarily accept permanent debarment from joining any military alliance whatsoever...
...Two—That, during these ten years, all of Berlin be considered as the potential capital of a reunited Germany and, as such, be placed under the protection of the United Nations...
...and that their separate admission to the United Nations shall not stand in the way of their obtaining a single membership in the United Nations in the event of their forming a single German state...
...and that the Soviet government and a new, non-Stalinist East German regime shall guarantee to the United Nations unhampered Western access to West Berlin and the freedom of its inhabitants...
...The fate of West Berlin—though not the freedom of its inhabitants—would depend upon an all-German decision for which no foreign power would be responsible and for which no foreign power could later be blamed...
...that the two German states be left for ten years, without outside interference of any sort, to find their own way toward reunification if such be their desire...
...WHAT TO DO ABOUT BERLIN by JAMES P. WARBURG THE explosive situation in Berlin, which has threatened the peace of Europe and the world for the past fourteen years, did not come about because anyone planned it that way...
...However, if the Soviet government will permit the establishment of a more moderate Communist regime, as it has in Poland, we might put forward the following proposals for discussion: One—That the de facto existence of the German Democratic Republic and the permanence of its Oder-Neisse frontier with Poland be recognized and that both German states be admitted to the United Nations...
...If and when such reunification shall take place, the United Nations Berlin Commission and the four garrisons serving as its agents shall be withdrawn, allowing Berlin to become the capital of a united Germany...
...The point at which to begin might be to say to Mr...
...Berlin was originally divided into American, British, French, and Soviet sectors in the expectation that it would become the seat of four-power government...
...That they shall be adequately compensated by the German Democratic Republic for their privately owned immovable property, such as real estate and buildings or improvements thereon, at values to be determined by the United Nations Berlin Commission...
...tioned into two states or to be reunited into one state...
...The situation as it exists today is that we have allowed the maintenance of the Western enclave to become a symbol of all resistance to Communist encroachment and a moral obligation to the people of West Berlin, while the existence of the Western enclave remains, from Khrushchev's point of view, "a bone in his throat" which he is determined to extract, even though the notorious wall has all but closed the escape-hatch to the West...
...Experience should have taught us by now that, so long as we merely "stand firm," threatening to fight, if necessary, for the maintenance of the status quo in Berlin, the Kremlin will be able at its convenience to promote one "Berlin crisis" after another, each crisis confronting us with the choice between risking war or submitting to the bit-by-bit attrition of our exposed position...
...Such an arrangement shall provide: • That those of West Berlin's inhabitants who do not wish to become citizens of the (East) German Democratic Republic shall be given ample time and complete freedom to remove themselves and their movable belongings into the Federal Republic of (West) Germany...
...Four—That if, within the ten-year period, the two German states shall have failed to reunite, thus leaving Berlin in the center of a permanently separate East German state, a new arrangement shall be made concerning the people, the land, and the property of the three Western sectors...
...What is the answer...
...Attrition by Khrushchev's familiar nibbling tactics has already begun to undermine their confidence in their ultimate security...
...If the United States and Britain are to continue to share the responsibility for the security of Western Europe, they can no longer permit themselves to be immobilized by an Adenauer-de Gaulle veto...
...So far as the cold war in Europe is concerned, there would be a cooling off period, leading, one might hope, to a similar relaxation of tensions in other parts of the world...
...It is from the point of view of the larger problem that a solution to the Berlin dilemma must be sought...
...The question is: "What can be done to eliminate a threat to peace which will continue to exist so long as the Western powers fail to wrest the initiative from the Soviet Union...
...What form should Western initiative take...
...Khrushchev that the cruelly oppressive East German regime of Walter Ulbricht is a relic of the Stalinist past—a past which the Soviet Union itself has condemned and repudiated...
...The Western powers did not occupy West Berlin in order to afford any special protection to the Germans who happened to live there...
...We cannot recognize or deal with the Ulbricht regime...
...The Western powers moved in solely to carry out their functions in governing all of Germany...
...and so long as this remains the case, there will always be a danger of a Russo-German deal in which some future German "statesman" will purchase his country's reunification at the price of another Soviet-German entente...
...It would provide a breathing spell during which the German people would work out their own destiny, deciding whether to reunite as a single, militarily neutralized state, or to remain divided into two states, the one allied to Moscow and the other to the West...
...It was never contemplated that West Berlin should become an isolated enclave of freedom in the heart of a Communist East German state...
...So long as the Kremlin remains in the position of being able to permit or prevent German reunification, it will retain a powerful weapon of seduction...
...that the present garrisons shall remain as agents of the United Nations...
...The Berlin imbroglio is and always has been inseparable from the larger problem of Germany's future—whether it is to remain permanently partiJAMES P. WARBURG, one of the nation's foremost analysts of foreign affairs, is the author of many books on world problems, including "Peace in Our Time?," "Germany, Bridge or Battleground," "Last Call for Common Sense," and "The United States in A Changing World...
...War would exterminate the people whose freedom we seek to preserve...
...Meanwhile, for the next ten years, there would be no recurring Berlin crises...
...Unlikely as this seems at present, it has happened before and could happen again...
...The foregoing four-point proposal, if made and accepted, would for the next ten years take the heat off the problems of Berlin and Germany...
...It resulted from the failure of an ill-conceived attempt on the part of the victors of World War II to establish a four-power government of a defeated Germany and from the subsequent disastrous partition of Germany into two separate states...
...The answer is that the United States and Great Britain must at long last take the initiative—if possible, with the consent and cooperation of the present French and West German governments—if necessary, over de Gaulle-Adenauer objections which may or may not in the end be found to reflect the sentiments of the French and German peoples...
...Furthermore: that during these ten years, the NATO powers and the Warsaw Pact powers shall guarantee to the United Nations and to each other that their respective sectors of Berlin will not be used as bases for espionage, subversion, or hostile propaganda, agreeing in advance that any disputes or complaints on this score shall be submitted to the United Nations Berlin Commission...
...Such debarment shall not apply to non-military, political, or economic affiliations...
...It should be emphasized that the whole proposal is predicated upon the condition that a more moderate and less oppressive Communist regime be established in the German Democratic Republic...
...So long as the next move is always up to the Kremlin, it is safe to predict that the situation will get steadily worse...
...If this condition is fulfilled, the benefit to the 17,000,000 inhabitants of East Germany would dwarf the uncertainty and the possible hardship of resettlement inflicted upon the 2,250,000 inhabitants of West Berlin...
...and that the value of the property thus purchased or exchanged shall likewise be determined by the United Nations Berlin Commission...
...It would serve no useful purpose at this time to assess blame or to review the blunders of commission and omission which have left the Western powers committed to defend an island of freedom surrounded by a Communist sea, and Russia's Communist satellite with a foreign body deeply embedded within its vital center...
...Why, indeed, should they...
...Here, too, it is a question of initiative...
Vol. 26 • November 1962 • No. 11
