Events That Led To The Erection Of The Berlin Wall _ Our History

Tension is high in Berlin, newly divided by a war. Troops of NATO and the Warsaw Pact confront each other at the Brandenburg Gate. Today, the crossing points have been reduced from 20 to six. All foreigners, including Allied personnel, have been restricted to a single crossing point. It's only 10 days since, without warning, East German soldiers and guards from the workers' militia began putting up barbed wire barricades around West Berlin. Some East Berliners tried to escape before it was too late. Two days ago, American and British reinforcements arrived. Only last month, Lord Hume, the British Foreign Secretary, warned, one false step over Berlin could easily plunge Europe into war. Official East German film shows that Herwalter Ulbricht, leader of the German Democratic Republic, believes the same. This white paint line in the Friedrichstraße in Berlin is the state frontier of the GDR. Here they stand face to face, troops of NATO and troops of the Warsaw Pact. A spark here could kindle a world war. After 16 years of Allied occupation, why is there now another crisis in Berlin? In 1945 at Yalta, and in the July at Potsdam, it was comparatively easy for the Allies to reach agreement on what they would destroy. It was less easy to agree on what to create. So Germany's military might was to be destroyed, Nazi leaders were to be tried at Nuremberg, and the German social, economic, and political system was to be cleansed, denazified. The Western powers and the Soviets agreed that the final aim was one Germany, indeed one world. But their ideas of this one world were so different that we have ended up with a divided Europe. Each side blames the other for the development of this cold war, and for a divided Germany, and a divided Berlin, cut off from Western Europe with limited links by road and rail, and by air from Hamburg, Hanover, and Frankfurt. In 1948, the Russian blockade of Berlin, when all supplies had to be flown in, seemed proof to the West of Stalin's aim to control all Berlin. General Klee, supreme commander in the American zone, said, When Berlin falls, Western Germany will be next. If we mean to hold Europe against communism, we must not budge. After 11 months, it ended with a standoff and the creation of East and West Berlin. The creation of the West German Federal Republic in 1949, the deployment of atomic weapons by NATO forces in September 1953, and the rearmament of West Germany within NATO since 1954, all these facts have seemed equal proof of Western threats to the East Germans and the Soviets, as this Russian cartoon shows. Official East German film gives their solution for West Berlin. The people's chamber, the parliament of the GDR, Walter Ulbricht, chairman of the state council, has repeatedly dealt with the West Berlin question. We are ready to make our contribution to a solution of the West Berlin problem, a solution in accordance with the justified interests of all parties. We are ready to make the concession that West Berlin shall be given the status of a demilitarized free city with international guarantees for this status. We shall not interfere in the international affairs of the West Berlin free city, but guarantees are naturally not a unilateral affair. We demand that in West Berlin, all those factors shall be removed which continually menace peace. This has been the West's reply to what President Kennedy has called, the Soviet manufactured crisis over Berlin. Reiterating readiness for negotiations, he stresses the principle of self-determination and speaks of the gravity of the threat posed by the Kremlin's East German regime. Recent statements by leaders of this regime make it very plain that the kind of quote free city unquote, which they have in mind, is one in which the rights of the citizens of West Berlin are gradually but relentlessly extinguished. In other words, a city which is not free. We would agree that there is unfinished business to be settled as concerns Germany. For many years, the Western nations have proposed a permanent and peaceful settlement of such questions on the basis of self-determination of the German people. Moreover, we shall always be ready to discuss any proposals which would give increased protection to the right of the people of Berlin to exercise their independent choice as free man. The proposals which have now been placed before us move in the opposite direction and are so recognized throughout the world. Discussions will be profitable if the Soviets will accept in Berlin and indeed in Europe self-determination which they profess in other parts of the world and if they will work sincerely for peace rather than an extension of power. Let's see again how the East Germans feel. For the past 10 years, the GDR has repeatedly made proposals. New offers to negotiate. Proposals for the solution of the West Berlin problem for the solution of the German problem. More than 100 realistic, acceptable proposals. But Bonn turned down all these offers. Well over 100 proposals. Some of them handed over personally in Bonn. In the Bonn Parliament, this delegation delivered the proposal that the two German states should form a confederation. What if Bonn had agreed? Over 100 proposals and this is Bonn's reply. Organized riots. Rioters burned the flag of the GDR. Scenes reminiscent of the Reichstag fire and the Nazi bonfires of books. What would things be like if there were only this Bonn state? All who were prominent under Hitler and who still live are back again. Hitler's field marshal Kesselring was one of them. The East Germans say that West Berlin is a centre for spies and agitators against the GDR. And the East Germans have produced this map to show, they say, where spies are to be found. The East Germans say they feel threatened and that the wall is a response to this threat. Watch this, their official film. On August 13th, 1961, the factory militia of the GDR, organized workers' battalions, marched out of their factories. The open state frontier between the German Democratic Republic and West Berlin is taken under control. Side by side with the factory militia stand the units of the People's Army. They too are workers in uniform, commanded by men who have fought all their lives against fascism. In the international brigades in Spain, in the concentration camps, in the resistance groups in Germany, and all over Europe. See how soldiers of the GDR are presented. They then show Western troops. Here's a Western newsreel view of events. The Kaiser Wilhelm Church, preserved as a bombed ruin, and the magnificent new buildings of West Berlin, today beckon East Berliners in vain. The mass exodus from the Communist side is ended, at least for the time being. The steady migration to the West side had increased since the news that Russia would make a treaty with East Germany. People had to escape now or, they feared, live the rest of their lives under the Red Tyranny. This year alone, 144,000 have fled to the West. Since the war, three million. Most of the people left nearly everything behind them. They valued freedom above all. From West Berlin, the refugees were flown to West Germany, a well-organized traffic which had been going on for years. As fast as one batch were cleared, others took their place. East Berlin and Moscow were at first annoyed, then alarmed. For the red part of the city was being seriously denuded of essential workers. Somehow the flow of refugees had to be stopped. Disused for years and guarded by Communist police have been many of the railways and roads between East and West Berlin. Now the barricades are going up everywhere. Many of the 50,000 East Berliners who work daily in the West sector have no job. Tanks are along the boundary. The guards have been redoubled. This is East Germany's complete admission that the people can be kept on their side of the border only by force. If ever any regime stood discredited, it is the puppet government of Dr. Ulbricht in East Germany. There's his rule by threat of machine gun and barbed wire. How sad the plight of those East Germans who read that the boundaries had been sealed and that they had left their escape attempt too late. But somehow 7,000 new refugees have escaped since the barricades went up. West of the Brandenburg Gate, the flame of freedom still burns. So the West sees the Berlin Wall as an attack on freedom and as an attempt to terrorise those who oppose Communism. The East sees the wall as a defence against Western aggression and attempts to undermine Communism and the socialist state of East Germany. Is either view correct? Let us try to establish some facts. Germany was divided into four zones of occupation after they surrendered in 1945. Berlin, the capital city, was divided into four sectors. This was confirmed by conferences at Yalta and Potsdam. The political and military presence of the Western powers in West Germany and in West Berlin is therefore clearly based on international agreements which have never been cancelled and can be changed only by agreement or by force. There are only 13,000 troops in West Berlin. The Western powers do not see this small number either as a threat to East Germany or as an occupying force preventing free expression of opinion. But it is true that some former members of the German armed forces and even some former Nazis hold public office in West Germany as the Daily Express has shown. Have they given up their Nazi views? Or are they now so useful to the West that their previous record is ignored? The number of refugees can be established fairly accurately. From September 1949 when the socialist regime was set up until the beginning of this year, 2,515,902 refugees crossed from East to West. West Berlin has been described by Khrushchev as a bone in the Soviet throat letting refugees escape as Conrad's cartoon in the Denver Post showed in June. On the 12th of August, 2,400 came out just before the barricades went up. More tried to escape at the last minute. To say they wish to be free leaves us with the problem that Ulbricht and Khrushchev are offering a free city in Berlin. We'll listen to how freedom for the people of West Berlin was described by the Western powers in a note sent to Khrushchev last month. A city does not become free merely by calling it free. For a city or a people to be free means that they have the opportunity without economic, political or police pressure to make their own choice and to live their own lives. The people of West Berlin today have their freedom. It is the aim of our policy for them to continue to have it. Since 1945, the feeling that the Second World War had been a war about freedom and that it must be protected has been an important part of Western policy. Victory and peace in Europe. Here you are, don't lose it again, was the message in Zeck's cartoon in the Daily Mirror in May 1945. But another reason for the flight of refugees might be the different economic conditions of the two Germanys. The Second World War, the 2,000-day war, had cost 500 European lives every hour. In 1945, Germany and Eastern Europe, including Russia, were in total ruins. The East Germans have had to rebuild their country and pay most of the reparations demanded from them by the Russians. The West's German economy has been revived with the help of martial aid from America, the work of the OEEC, industrial and trade agreements with France and the Benelux countries and, since 1957, the EEC. This is life in West Berlin. On the other side of the Brandenburg Gate, this is life in East Berlin. Is either side's view the whole truth? Is it freedom or a higher standard of living that attracts the refugees? Are Ulbricht and Khrushchev defending the people of East Germany or are they protecting themselves against criticism from hardline Stalinists? Can Khrushchev or Kennedy afford to lose? Is it the people of Berlin on both sides of the wall who might be the real losers? There are now demands for countermeasures. Berlin expects more than words, is the cry. Some say Berlin is worth a war. We have been warned. One false step over Berlin could easily plunge Europe into war.