Feast of Friendship

Busily fishing in Germany's agitated waters, Georgy Malenkov summoned his two chief East German puppets--Otto Grotewohl and Walter Ulbricht--to Moscow last week for a Feast of "Soviet-German Friendship." They were wined & dined in Moscow as no German has been since the days of Von Ribbentrop. In a sudden onrush of vodka, the workers' rebellion of June 17 and the puppet regime's consequent loss of face, were supposed to be forgotten. Malenkov toasted the East German regime as "the bulwark of peaceful forces of all Germany"; he promised to give it "full support and help." A Kremlin communique showed what Malenkov had in mind. He offered:

P: To forgo, from next Jan. 1, all further East German reparations and to cancel her postwar debts.

P: To release German war prisoners guilty of "minor" crimes. West Germans say the Russians still hold 90,000 to 100,000 German P.W.s. Russia admits to holding only 13,500, of which 9,700 are accused of "grave" war crimes.

P: To supply $150 million worth of goods, including coal, rolled steel, copper, zinc and aluminum, four-fifths on credit, and to hand back 33 requisitioned plants.

Grotewohl accepted Malenkov's proposals, the communique said, with "satisfaction and gratitude." Malenkov was clearly hoping to put his East German puppets back in business after their pummeling last June. He also used the occasion to accuse Konrad Adenauer of "leading Germany toward a new war," and "again setting Germany against the peoples of Western and Eastern Europe." This was calculated to make some propaganda hay among Germany's fearful neighbors, the Poles, the Czechs and the French. But would it have much effect on the German elections? Probably not, for if there is one thing all West Germans are united on, it is a contempt for Messrs. Grotewohl, Ulbricht & Co.

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