Berlin: The Rush to Freedom

At last the East German Communist regime of Walter Ulbricht seemed to be making a determined attempt to stop its refugees running out to the West. But they still keep coming. Last week People’s Army patrols in camouflage uniforms stalked the spruce forests and potato fields in a twelve-mile circle around East Berlin in search of defectors; jackbooted People’s Police and railway police combed all access roads, airports and railways leading to the city. But through them all the refugees poured across to the West at the rate of some 1,500 a day. West Berlin authorities estimate that an additional 1,000 daily are being turned back before they reach freedom.

Last month alone, 30,415 East Germans escaped to West Berlin, one-third of them workers badly needed by labor-short East German industry and transport. Presumably to offset these losses, the Communists began making trouble for the 52,000 East Germans who, by subway and elevated, daily commute to jobs in West Berlin. No published order exists prohibiting East Germans from working in West Berlin, but East German army and police last week summarily began hauling East Germans off their commuter trains even before they reached the East Berlin sector on their way to the Western half of the city. They invalidated East German commuters’ identification cards and told their holders to find new jobs in East Germany. East Berlin commuters trying to cross the border on their way to work in West Berlin were arrested, their identification cards taken from them, and many clapped in jail. One East Berliner asked why he was being stopped and was told: “Don’t play dumb.” Communist vigilante squads styling themselves “Committees to Block the Slave Trade” turned commuters over to the police. Inevitably, many of the Berlin commuters joined the refugees, and now make up 20% of the stream.

Commandants of the U.S., British and French sectors of Berlin protested the new harassments, especially the Russians’ infringement of the right to circulate freely throughout the city (“The principle of freedom of movement is basic to the agreements regarding Berlin”). In the past, Russian replies to such protests have sometimes been delayed for weeks. This time, the only immediate reply was indirect: the East Germans ordered all commuters to pay their rent in West rather than East German marks, which means a fivefold increase in rent.

As the heat increased, the hated East German Communist Boss Walter Ulbricht was nowhere to be seen. After he failed to appear at an East Berlin reception for Ghana’s junketing Kwame Nkrumah, reports circulated that Ulbricht had flown to Moscow for fresh orders and to discuss with Khrushchev new therapy for “the bone in my throat” that is Berlin. At week’s end an East German spokesman confirmed that Ulbricht was in Moscow.