Rehabilitated Rival

In the late 19205 when German Communism was still in its adolescence, sly. ruthless Walter Ulbricht and scrappy, fanatic Franz Dahlem were two of its brightest stars and, hence, bitter rivals. Both were sent to take part in the Spanish civil war as political commissars. Both were soon ordered home, and Ulbricht obeyed, ending up in Moscow. But Dahlem stayed on until he had to flee Spain in defeat. He was interned in France, and subsequently turned over to the invading Germans. He wound up in a Nazi concentration camp. All this time, safe in Moscow, Ulbricht solidified his own position.

After the war, when Moscow set up its East German satellite, Ulbricht's sedulous sycophancy was rewarded with the key party job in the new state, that of party general secretary. Dahlem got the less important job: chief party organizer. But though Dahlem was his subordinate, such eminence was still too close to his own for Ulbricht's comfort, and Ulbricht waited his chance to pounce.

The opportunity came in the early 19505, when Communism's solid front swayed and bent under the impact of the treason trials of Hungary's Laszlo Rajk, Czechoslovakia's Rudolf Slansky and the American Noel Field. Charging his rival with "political blindness" in having once befriended Field. Ulbricht seized Dahlem in May 1953. At first Dahlem was jailed, then sent to an East German hospital for observation. Dahlem's fortune ebbed further in 1954 when his son Robert fled to the West. Dahlem was ordered to the Soviet Union for a "rest." Since that time, the face of Russian Communism, which once glared at the world through the single, impassive mask of Stalin, has assumed a variety of new expressions.

Last week, in an hour-long speech well larded with what Germany's anti-Communists call Partei Chinesisch (party Chinese), East Germany's Party Boss Walter Ulbricht got around to announcing the new look in East German Communism. The Ulbricht speech included the now mandatory apology to Tito, a helping of discreet selfcriticism, and the rehabilitation of a few old victims. The first of these (who may not have been Ulbricht's own choice) was his old rival, Franz Dahlem. "The conditions under which the investigation of Comrade Dahlem was conducted," said Ulbricht, "have ceased to exist."

It may be that Ulbricht counts on the fact that Dahlem, who suffers from a heart ailment, appears to have aged considerably. But it remains a fact that Dahlem would be a natural choice for party leadership should the Russians try to reorganize East German Communism without unpopular Walter Ulbricht.

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