Into the Family

All week long in Berlin the desultory brabbling between the Western Powers and the Russians flared, faded, flared again. The light generated there illuminated little save irreconcilable differences. But 350 miles to the west, in the heart of the industrial Ruhr, the flickerings revealed how much closer was a Western German state.

In Duesseldorf, General Sir Brian Robertson, Britain's commander in Germany, addressed himself to the North Rhine-Westphalia Parliament. Cried he: "Come forward determined to make the best of the largest part of your country. . . ." For the foreseeable future, Russian obstruction had made one Germany impossible. On the far side of the Iron Curtain was "unity," Robertson said, but it was "unity with the Czechs and other people of Eastern Europe in a common bondage."

"Make Up Your Minds." The best that Western Germans could make of their two-thirds of the nation was considerable. There would be the prospect of quickening economic recovery through the European Recovery Program. Western Germany, now a three-headed monstrosity of Allied administration, would be brought back "into the family of those nations whose economy is so closely related by nature" to its own. And there would be achieved the unity of "an independent, freely elected representative government."

General Robertson exhorted: "Make up your minds and stand together against these gentlemen who, with democracy on their lips and truncheons behind their backs, would filch your German freedom from you." He was applauded thunderously. But one Communist deputy stalked ostentatiously out of the meeting.

The shape of Western Germany, observers thought, would be determined when the U.S., Great Britain and France resumed their talks on "Trizonia" next week in London. There would be sufficient reassurances for France, whose fears of a centralized Germany had made her reluctant to see the zones merged. By fall, some believed, a state would exist, with Frankfurt as its capital.

"Ja" in the East. Red countermeasures had already begun. The day before Robertson spoke, the Russian-controlled Berlin radio announced, not unexpectedly, a plebiscite for the Soviet zone next month on the question of "unity." The foregone conclusion: most would vote "Ja." Then the Russians could set up their capital in Berlin (in their own sector), or possibly in Leipzig.

Meantime the snapping at Allied flanks in the city went on unceasingly. When a Soviet fighter plane dived into a British transport (15 died, including the fighter pilot), the Russians had apologized in jigtime, then as quickly reversed themselves. Wrote Red Marshal Vasily Sokolovsky in an outstandingly insulting note: attempts to blame the Russian pilot for the crash "can be interpreted by me only as defamation apparently following provocative aims." Robertson's reply was surprisingly mild; he asked for a joint investigation.

At week's end the Russians went farther, demanded withdrawal of Allied cable maintenance teams from relay stations (in the Soviet zone) governing all wire communications into Berlin from Frankfurt. It was a squeeze calculated simply to disrupt wire services into and out of the beleaguered Western sectors. The Russians also hinted that they might narrow the Allies' air corridor into Berlin.

In all the hurly-burly a last link between East & West in Berlin quietly fell away. U.S. General Lucius Clay, explaining that none of the other powers had asked him to, scheduled no meeting of the Allied Control Council. Many wondered whether it would ever meet again.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.