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co nflict with the Un ited Sta tes.
which might pos ibly have led to
wa r. I neither could nor wanted to
ri sk that. So there was nothing left
but the wall.
" 1 a lso do not want to concea l
from you that it was
1
who in the
fi nal ana lys is gave the order. Lt i
true th at Ulbricht [the la te East
German leader Wa lter Ulbri ch t]
had bee n pressuring me for a long
time. but I do not want to hide be–
hind his back - he' much too nar–
row forme."
Khrushchev had spoken with re–
ma rkable forthrightness. He had ad–
mi tted the "mass flight" of 30.000
East Ge rmans in July 196 1, and he
even admitted that th ese included
" the best and most capable people."
J
n fact. as he well knew,
more than
rhree mil/ion
Ea t Gennans had
"voted with their feet" since 1945,
by leaving the Commun ist-ru n So–
vi et Zone of Occupa tion . including
East Berlí n, for the freedom and
pro peri ty of the West. Those who
ft ed were from the younger genera–
tio n. and chiefl y the ambitious
among th em. Few from the olde r
generat ion made the break because
they wanted to live out their lives in
their homes, no matter wha t.
Just .about one out of every five
Eas t Germans had fl ed Comm u–
ni sm; the East Germans tried to ha lt
this ftow by making " flight from the
Republ ic" a crime punishabl e by
three years' imprisonment. but it
didn' t work. From 1950 until the
first half of 196 1, an average 19,000
East Germans e caped to West Ber–
lín
every single month.
East Ge r–
many denounced th is exodus as
"s lave trading' ' and " pira ting of in–
dividua ls" - ignoring the fact tha t
no one was urging these refugees to
come Wes t, th a t what impe lled
them to flee was life in a total–
itarian, a the istic st<ite.
That top talent was fl eeing infuri–
ated Ulbricht. More than 1,600 sci–
entists fl ed to West Gcrmany in j ust
th e three years prior to 196 L and
th e effect was devasta ting. In Eas t
Berlín alone. the number of appren–
tices was cut in half; 30,000 students
fl ed from East Berlí n a fter geuing
30
their d iplomas at Humbold t Univer–
sity there.
Those fleeing Communism wasn't
the only thing that bothe red that
Communi st super-hardlin er. Wa lter
Ulbricht. The open borde r between
Wes t and Eas t Berlí n a llowed
ha!f a
mil/ion
to visit the Wes t evcry single
day. Of these. about 60,000 actually
had jobs in West Berlín. and the
rcmainde r came over to refresh
themse lves in the
libra r i e~.
mu–
seums. theaters. and operas of the
free Wes tern sectors. So many came
to read book which we re forbidden
them under Communi m that, when
the border was sealed, the Ame rican
Memoria l Library in Wes t Berlín
noted the loss of thousa nds of vol–
umes which Eas t Berli ners were
then unabl e to return.
All these fac tors had crea ted one
Berlín crisis a fte r anoth er - or so
th e ofll cial version goes. Whi le mass
fl ights from Communist East Ger–
many had led to the bui lding of the
Berl ín Wall, the blame for the Wall
ca nnot be placed on those who fl ec\:
it must be ass igned to those who
tr ied to stop them and those whose
sys tem of government provoked the
exodus in the first place. ever–
th eless, the Wes t had grown weary
ami nervous of " Berl in cri ses." and
the re were many in Washi ngton .
London, and París who privately
we lcomed the Berlín Wall. while
pu blicly denouncing it.
The Berlín Wa ll, wrotc Kennedy–
adviser Arthur M. Schl esinger. ·'rep–
rese nted a solu tion, a t consid erable
polí tica! cos t, of th e problem that,
more than anythi ng else, had led
Kh rushchev
to
reopen the Berlí n
qu e ·tion earlier in th e yea r." and
had led to the " Berl ín Ult ima tum"
th e Soviets had issued .
" lt's no use denyi ng tha t the Wa ll
has he lped the Wes t. " said a n
American dip loma t sta ti oned in
West Berlí n. "The fa ct of the matt er
is that all these hundreds of thou–
sa nds of Eas t German refu gees were
an unsettling influence on West Ber–
lín, as well as a constant in ter–
n a ti o nal i r rit a n!. Th e Wa ll' s
changed a ll that. "
The Wall itself has changed over
the last 15 years . On August 13.
1961. it consisted only of barbed
wire st rung knee-high; then the wire
was ra ised; next. the first stones
we re put in place. A mined "death
stri p" one hund red ya rds wide was
crca tcd to stop escapee from reach–
ing the Wall, and this
wa~.
in places.
' ·pretti fied" wi th llower beds.
The fac t tha t much of the sector
boundary between East and Wes t
Be rl ín runs through actua l city
streets made the job easicr for the
Communists. They bricked up the
wi ndows of houses on their
~ id e
of
the dema rcat ion line. maki ng the
empti ed apa rtment bui ldi ngs a ba r–
rie r in themselves . Wherever there
was a gap between buildi ngs, they
erected a stone ba rrie r. but the total
length of the Berlín Wall which they
ac tually
had
ro
bui/d
runs to about
ni ne miles. or a third of the length
of the boundary.
Still. this monument to Soviet
clom ina tion was a costly a nd labor i–
ous underta king. Ma teria ls a lone
cost a bout $2 million; more than
S1. 6 mi llion was spen t on barbed
wire. and another $2 mill ion on tow–
ers. bunkers. sea rch lights. and the
construct ion of the "death strip. " Al!
this does not take into account
wages paid to construclion and de–
mo lition workers. the cos t of ma in–
tai ning t roops along the Wall, the
va lue of property either bricked up
or torn down, or the loss of income
from thc stores, workshops. and fac–
tor ies affected. Since then, much of
thc ' 'o ld" wal l of 15 yea rs ago has
disa ppeared. and vast sums have
bee n spen t on a "modcrnizcd" ba r–
rier - one yet more fo rmidable.
What Price Freedom?
Seventy East Ge rrnan have been
killed a t the Berlín Wa ll since it
went up. (The dea th to ll a t the much
longer frontie r betwee n East Ger–
many and the Western Fede ra l Re–
publ ic is a grea t dea l highcr.) The
body count for the Berlí n Wa ll
amounts to one innocent person
murdered every ten weeks. over 15
yea rs, but in fac t most of the dea ths
occu rred at the begin ni ng.
(Conrinued
011
page 32)
The
PLAIN TRUTH August 1976