Frost Is Forming Along the Wall

A not-so-Communist manifesto hurts East-West relations

The signs of East Germany's icy displeasure were unmistakable. Bound for East Berlin on a private visit, West German Christian Democratic Party Leader Helmut Kohl and three aides last weekend routinely handed over their passports at the Friedrichstrasse checkpoint near the Berlin Wall; there a squad of gray-coated Grenzpolizei, the Communist border guards, brusquely barred their way. Kohl had crossed the Wall several times in the past, but this time he was forced to wait at the checkpoint for an hour and then was told that his visit was "undesirable." Although the Bonn government protested that the East German action was in violation of three treaties, border guards then prevented two other West German members of Parliament from entering the East. At the same time, many motorists seeking to drive into West Berlin via the East German Autobahn were being halted and subjected to searches by Communist police. The political forecast was for one of the sharpest freezes in relations between East and West Germany since the two states established diplomatic ties five years ago.

The trouble began earlier this month when the West German weekly Der Spiegel published a 30-page manifesto issued by a group of underground dissenters in East Germany who called themselves the League of Democratic Communists of Germany. The document denounced the Soviet Union for "brutal exploitation and suppression" of East Germany. With bitter sarcasm, the anonymous authors called their country "a pathetic imitation of a Soviet Republic whose worst features have been reinforced by German thoroughness." Noting that Stalin had concentration camps even before Hitler, the manifesto charged that the "barbaric" Soviet system had since 1945 claimed "more victims in Eastern Europe than Hitler's Nazism and World War II." The manifesto called for the restoration of basic freedoms and the reunification of Germany, after the East has withdrawn from the Warsaw Pact and the West from NATO.

The manifesto also attacked corruption and greed in the government of Party Chief Erich Honecker. "These Politburo-crats are sick with conceit," the document declared. "No ruling class in Germany has ever sponged on others the way the two dozen ruling Communist families have, using our country like a self-service store." Accused of living in "golden ghettos," the leaders were said to have "enriched themselves shamelessly in special shops and by privately ordering goods from the West." The worst offender was Honecker himself, who, the manifesto charged, had "stuffed the homes of his relatives from cellar to roof with the most modern Western conveniences" and obtained highly paid jobs for his wife and in-laws.

Alarmed by broadcast stories about the manifesto on West German TV, which is watched by 80% of East Germans, Honecker called a Politburo meeting to deal with the crisis. The party leadership closed Der Spiegel's East Berlin bureau, the first such Communist action since East and West Germany agreed to exchange journalists in 1972. A wide-scale press campaign in the East tried to discredit the manifesto as a "malicious concoction" of West German intelligence. Initially some Communist-propaganda experts in Bonn had suspected the document's authenticity. Now, however, there is agreement that the manifesto was composed by a small group of dissidents and low-level party members in the East.

In yet another move to counter the impact of the document, the Communists stepped up their accusations that the Federal Republic had been guilty of spying on the East. Immediately after the manifesto's publication, the East German news agency A.D.N. reported that Guenter Weinhold, 40, a senior official in the West Berlin government finance department, had been arrested in East Germany for espionage. Last week courts in East Berlin meted out sentences of seven to twelve years to three West Germans charged with spying. Meanwhile, Bonn believes, the East Germans are stepping up their intelligence activities in the Federal Republic. A Bonn parliamentary committee last week held hearings to determine how much damage resulted from deep penetration of the West German Defense Ministry by three East German spies.

Despite the charges and counter charges, both governments were avoiding actions that would lead to an open break. Dismissing the manifesto as a mere "atmospheric disturbance," the East German official envoy in Bonn, Michael Kohl, declared that the Communists "retain their interest in a continued improvement of relations." Last week West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt stated soothingly that he felt the East German leadership "intends to continue the process of relaxation of tensions." In fact, there are good reasons for both sides to pursue Ostpolitik, Germany's form of detente. East Germany's stake in good relations involves $1.2 billion in loans from Bonn and exports to West Germany that totalled $939 million in the first half of last year. For West Germany, Ostpolitik has meant preserving the security of geographically isolated West Berlin. It has also allowed an average of 6.9 million West Germans to visit relatives in the East each year, and 45,000 East Germans to emigrate to the West since 1972. "Our ties to the other part of Germany are not with out burdens, and the present new strains are a setback," Schmidt said last week, "but there is no alternative to detente."

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