THE TWO GERMANYS WESTS COOL RESPONSE TO EAST’S NEW PROVOCATIONS

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31723, 5 July 1968, Page 8

THE TWO GERMANYS WESTS COOL RESPONSE TO EAST’S NEW PROVOCATIONS

(By

DAVID SHEARS.

writing to the "baity Telegraph", LOnOOn. from Bonn)

CReprinted from the "baity Telegraph" by arrangement) Mr Walter Ulbricht, East Germany’s indomitable cold warrior, has won another round in his contest with the Federal Republic. But he knows that m the long run his Stalinist system is doomed and he is merely postponing the evil day. This is a fair conclusion from the eventa of the last fortnight, since the news of Mr Ulbricht’s visa and passports regulations reached Bonn in the middle of the Queen’s Birthday garden party.

Most of the Government and Diplomatic Corps were there. As the word spread, all remained serene in the best British tradition. The band of the 9/12 Royal Laneers played on and nearly everybody stayed to finish their champagne and bowls of strawberries. But male conversation turned to the latest Communist move. Since that time a good deal has become clear. Few people in Bonn doubt that Herr Ulbricht acted from fear. His Government stands like an iceberg amid the thawing currents of Eastern Europe. So far it has managed to resist the melting influences from Czechoslovakia, Rumania and elsewhere, but not without difficulty. Czechoslovakia border radio stations broadcasting in German are being jammed. Becoming Isolated The gulf between Prague and East Berlin should not be exaggerated. Contacts between the two Governments remain very much alive as last month's visit of the Czechoslovak Foreign Minister to East Berlin showed. But the fact remains that Herr Ulbricht’s 17 million East Germans are becoming increasingly isolated behind their walls, minefields, barbed wire and watchtowers. Every new reform in Rumania and Czechoslovakia, every new trade contract between these countries and West Germany makes this isolation more complete. So Mr Ulbricht, who was 75 recently, is obviously worried. He has an interest in reviving the cold war, in reviving East European suspicions of West Germany and its supposedly war-like and "revanchist” policies. His demand that West Germans wanting to travel to East Germany, or through East Germany to Berlin, must henceforth produce passports and carry East German visas was a calculated move-to this end. It was designed to provoke the Bonn Government into angry coun-ter-measures. If Bonn refused to take the bait, its inaction would probably produce nationalist protest votes in the 1969 West German election, and this, too, would reawaken old fears in Eastern Europe. Useful Revenue

Either way, it must have looked to Mr Ulbricht as though he could not lose. Moreover, his assertion of visa powers on his borders would provide a new demonstration of East German national sovereignty, and the sale of visas would bring in badly-needed hard currency. Altogether it is estimated that the new Communist imposts—the toll charges tor lorries, buses and barges, as well as the visa fees and other border costs—will bring East Germany some DMBO million (about £8 million) a year. On his visit to Moscow last month Mr Ulbricht evidently persuaded the Russians that he could get away with all this.

The Russians gave him the go-ahead. Possibly they had refused him permission previously. just as they bad delayed the building of the Berlin Wall for Over a year before it finally went up in August, 1961. Now conditions were different. The Kremlin could calculate that the Allies were hardly likely to retaliate at a time when France was seml-paralysed by strikes and electioneering, America preoccupied with an election, Vietnam and the nuclear non - proliferation treaty, and Britain afflicted as usual with financial worries. Altogether, then, it seemed like a shrewd move. The East German border guards, after a little initial confusion, began issuing the new visas as routine to all-comers. Traffic flowed smoothly between Berlin and the West. Allies Confer The British. French, American and West German members of the Four-Power Berlin working group conferred at once to flnd themselves confronting a delicate situation. The East German move had

Mr R. C. Stuart (above) has been appointed to a senior executive position with the New Zealand Dairy Board, and will take up his appointment early in September. Mr Stuart is now executive director of the Agricultural Production Council. His duties with the board will include liaison with the Senior executive officers in various branches of the board's work, and particularly in association with the Agricultural Production Council and the National Development Conference. Mr Stuart, who went to the Agricultural • Production Council from the Department of Agriculture at Christchurch, is better known as a footballer. He was an AU Black in 1949, 1953 and 1954, and played for Canterbury and New Zealand Universities frem 1946.

been long foreseen, but the old contingency planning had to be reviewed in the light of present realities. Legally, the West Is on weak ground. It la true that tn 1949 the three Western Powers and Russia agreed to lift all restrictions “on communications, transportation and trade between Berlin and the Western zones of Germany and between the Eastern and Western zones.” But neither Russia nor East Germany has ever promised specifically to maintain freedom of access to Berlin. The true significance of Ulbricht’s moves, the Allies decided, is not so much immediate as potential. They open up new fields for mischiefmaking. Ulbricht’s propagandists must have been pleased at last week’s banner headline of the extreme Rightwing Munich paper “Nazional Zeitung”: “Berlin is Lost.”

For it is this kind of exaggerated reaction which could bring about the very thing these propagandists want: a boost for Herr von Tbadden's National Democrats. Aid Plan Berlin is not lost: far from it The Bonn Government’s first reaction was to speed up an economic aid plan for West Berlin which had not been due to come before Parliament until the autumn, ft provides the city with a variety of increased subsidies and tax reliefs. At the same time Parliament has approved virtually without debate, the Cabinet’s proposal that the Federal Government should bear the entire cost of East Germany’s new imposts. These measures will cost West German taxpayers at least DM 200 million (£2O million) a year. Other aids such as a cutrate air shuttle service to Berlin have been proposed. In all these ways the West German Government is trying to maintain confidence in West Berlin and to halt the slow drain of young people and brains from the city. But in the long tun, many Germans fear, it will hardly be possible for West Berlin to flourish as an island in a hostile sea. At some stage the city must come to terms with East Germany. East’s Precondition Chances of this ate minimal at present Mr Ulbricht insists upon “normalisation of relations” as the precondition of any talks on easing the effects of German division. He does not apparently, mean that he wants the Federal Republic to recognise East Germany as foreign territory. Hints have been dropped that he would be content with the kind of State-to-State relationship that existed between Prussia and Bavaria a century ago.

But the distinction between this and all-out diplomatic recognition is too subtle for most West German politicians. In responding to the latest Berlin challenge tbe West German Government has nevertheless avoided falling into Mr Ulbricht’s trap. It insisted from tbe outset that no provocation would deflect it from its course of seeking reconciliation with Eastern Europe. A few years ago such a mild response in Bonn would have been inconceivable. But Dr Kiesinger’s coalition Government, at least, has recognised that it has everything to gain and nothing to lose from East-West relaxation in Europe. Just as the reverse is true for Mr Ulbricht’s regime in East Berlin. With Mr Brandt as Social Democrat Foreign Minister this search for links with Eastern Europe generally has become the focus of Bonn's policy. Link With Moscow Mr Brandt’s secret meeting with Mr Abrasslmov, the Russian Ambassador to East Germany, was a case in point It showed that the Russians not only do not want a Berlin crisis but that they are prepared to reassure Bonn on this score over tbe heads of the East Germans. It also showed that even in a time of strain the West German Foreign Minister is willing and able to keep open a link with Moscow.

No doubt Mr Brandt told Mr AbrasslmOv what the Western Allies have been telling Moscow all along; that messing about with Berlin’s lifelines is a dangerous game which runs counter to all attempts to improve East-West relations. But it is notable that it was the three Western Allies, not the West Germans, who took the only physical countermeasure to Mr Ulbright’s harassment, by restricting East German visits to the West West Germany proposed this form of retaliation but is not affected by it and does not, apparently, intend to follow suit For however beastly Mr Ulbricht may be, Bonn wants to include East Germany in its drive for better East-West relation?.

Th|s, at least Is Bonn’s present policy. It will become harder to maintain as next year’s general election approaches and, as expected, East Germany's provocations Continue. But time 1* surely on West Germany's side.