RIOTS IN BERLIN

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31654, 15 April 1968, Page 9

RIOTS IN BERLIN

(N.Z.P. A.-Reuter—Copyright)

WEST BERLIN, April 14. Student leaders early today approved massive Easter Sunday demonstrations in spite of warnings of tougher Government measures if disorders continued.

As the police prepared for the fourth day of battle against Left-wing youths since the attempted assassination of the militant student leader, “Red” Rudi Dutschke, students planned to join antinuclear marches in West Berlin and all major West German cities. In West Berlin, the focal point of the unprecedented violence, students voted against proposals to block the routes to West Germany. The proposals were aimed at

forcing the police to release about 250 students arrested in the third day of street demonstrations yesterday. The demonstrations were within hours of the intervention in the student unrest by East Germany, which has barred Bonn Ministers and top officials from travelling across its territory to West Berlin. The West German Chancellor (Dr Kurt Kiesinger) said in a television and radio broadcast that he would not tolerate further outrages such as those touched off by an attempt on Friday night on the life of Mr Dutschke. The East German move caught by surprise the Government officials in Bonn, who were preoccupied with the worst civil disorder in recent times. Observers regard the East German move primarily as a propaganda measure, designed to exploit the student unrest in West Germany. Ministers almost always fly to Berlin, and the ban thus

cannot be enforced effectively. Among those arrested was Peter Brandt, the 19-year-old son of the West German Social Democrat leader and Foreign Minister (Mr Willy Brandt). Elsewhere in West Germany, the situation was relatively calm, though tense, after Friday night's clashes between the police and students blockading the printing works of the “Bild Zeitung." The students demonstrated against the editorial policies of the “Bild Zeitung," which Is owned by West Germany's biggest publisher, Mr Axel Springer. They accuse Mr Springer's publications, and particularly the “Bild Zeitung,” of fostering intolerance which led to the assassination attempt against Mr Rudi Dutschke. They also complain that Mr Springer’s vast enterprise is building a monopoly dangerous to freedom of opinion.