Indispensable Satellite

"Let's be honest. No one really wants German reunification. No one!"

--Nikita Khrushchev to a West German Socialist delegation.

While Western diplomats and editorialists continued to discuss terms by which Russia might be persuaded to unify Germany, all signs indicated that Khrushchev has no intention of giving up control of his half. Communist economic blueprints under the new seven-year plan point plainly to East Germany's assigned role as the industrial heart of the satellite bloc:

P: On the Baltic coast at Warnemuende, docks are being built to establish one of the world's largest ports. It will be open to Soviet shipping this year. A 15-year inland waterway scheme will link Berlin and Magdeburg by a system of canals and rivers with Russia's Kaliningrad (formerly East Prussian Koenigsberg) and Poland's industrial Bydgoszcz.

P: East Germany, in addition to being Russia's No. 1 trading partner, serves as a substantial tool of Communist penetration in non-Communist parts of the world, where German technical performance is respected. Beyond the 77% of East German trade that goes to Russia and European satellites, 11% now goes to the Middle East, most of the rest to the Far East. East Germany is now Europe's fifth biggest industrial nation.

In addition to East Germany's assigned role as primary producer of chemicals in Communist Europe (TIME, Dec. 8), it has now been tapped as "coordinator" of all bloc chemical production, responsible for boosting the area's chemical output fivefold by 1965. An array of interlocking agreements with Czechoslovakia, Hungary and the other satellites assigns East Germany responsibility for large deliveries of diesel and electric motors, power-station equipment and motor vehicles in exchange for raw materials.

The loss of East German production would upset master plans, close factories and throw men out of work from Warsaw to Peking. Khrushchev obviously has no intention of bargaining away his hold: he wants to be confirmed in it.

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