Page:Minority of One September 1961.pdf/8
Berlin: Background of a Crisis
By John Swomley, Jr.
At the Vienna Conference of President Kennedy and Premier Khrushchev on June 4, 1961, the Soviet leader handed the President a note which stated, according to the New York Times of July 8 "that unless there was a settlement of the German problem by the end of the year, including the conversion of West Berlin into a 'demilitarized free city' the Soviet Union would sign a peace treaty with Communist East Germany and turn over to East Germany the control of access to West Berlin."
This demand on the part of Khrushchev is not new. On November 3, 1958, he announced that the time had come "to give up the remnants of the occupation regime in Berlin" and called upon the Western powers "to establish their own relations with the German Democratic Republic and come to an agreement with it. . ." He indicated that the West had made of Berlin a "state within a state" and was using it as "a base for subversive activity against East Germany and Russia." He went on to say that the Western powers enjoy the right of "unhampered communication" between West Germany and West Berlin over a territory whose government they do not even recognize. Finally, he made it clear that if anyone attacks East Germany, the U.S.S.R. "will consider it as an attack on the Soviet Union. . ." He set the end of May, 1959, or roughly six months, as a deadline for action.
The six-month deadline arrived and a crisis was averted. Some say Mr. Khrushchev backed down, but a more reasonable interpretation is that there was hope of a summit meeting between President Eisenhower and Mr. Khrushchev. A visit between the two took place in the United States, a discussion of Berlin was held and, according to various reports, some hope was held out that negotiations on Berlin might take place. Later came pressure from West German Chancellor Adenauer, the U-2 spy plane incident, the abortive summit meeting in Europe, and the worsening of the international scene.
After the summit failure and in view of the election of a new President, Khrushchev stated that he would wait until the new administration had an opportunity to get well under way.
Prior to the June 4, 1961, memorandum, President Kennedy canvassed America's allies in Europe and appointed former Secretary of State Dean Acheson to do the canvassing and make a study of the situation. Acheson, according to a June 1, 1961, New York Times report, recommended to President deGaulle that the North Atlantic nations be placed on an emergency basis and a U.S.-British-French military task force be ready to convoy supplies through the East-West check point at Helmstadt. In this fashion, the U.S., instead of using the available time since 1958 for a study of new negotiating positions that might solve the problem of Berlin and Germany, has come up with a last-minute military threat.
On June 15, the East German Communist leader, Walter Ulbricht, announced that his government wanted "full control of all traffic on land, on water and in the air" and urged the Western Allies to negotiate their rights of access to Berlin with East Germany "if they do not want traffic to be interrupted."
Longer-Term Background
At the Moscow Conference in October, 1943, Britain, Russia, and the United States agreed on joint occupation of Germany and set up a joint European Advisory Commission. This Commission agreed in November, 1944, on a system of zones proposed by the Soviets, and on a system of control machinery for Germany with each Commander in Chief in charge of his zone.
At this time the State Department position was one of wanting guaranteed access to Berlin by land. The military, however, did the actual deciding and had a veto over the State Department. The U.S. military felt its superiority over the Russians and did not believe a signed written agreement was necessary. So the military planners insisted that the problem of access be left for settlement at the military level. It was thus the American military which was responsible for the first serious problems over Berlin, resulting in no legal agreement for assured access to Berlin by land. (The U.S., however, did insist on a written guarantee from the British for free access from the North German ports in the British zone to the American zone of occupation!)
At this time Russia apparently had no intention to incorporate Berlin into the Soviet Union's control since it rejected a U.S. request to feed Berlin and thus put it under Russia's economic control.
The United States was not prepared to press for constructive agreements on social and economic matters because the War Department supported the vengeful Morgenthau plan against a more moderate line advocated by the State Department. President Roosevelt, apparently as a result of this controversy, issued a directive which forbade any policy settlements over Germany in the end of 1944. Thus when Germany surrendered in May, 1945, there was uncertainty among the great powers as to their policy.
It was at Yalta in 1944 that Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin agreed on the zones of occupation of Germany with an Allied Control Commission in Berlin to govern all of Germany as an economic and political unit. Stalin later agreed to have the French become a part of this Control Commission and have a zone taken from the original American zone. Berlin was to be occupied by all four powers and divided into four sectors.
At Yalta it was agreed to let Russia have a part of eastern Poland and eastern Prussia (Germany) with Poland being compensated for its loss to Russia by getting what was left of Germany east of the Oder-Neisse rivers.
The next series of moves that complicated the Berlin and German picture were made by the French. Since at Potsdam it was agreed that the Allied Control Council should operate on a basis of unanimous decisions, France was able petulantly to veto the setting up of all-German political parties, nation-wide labor unions, and other items which would have made it difficult if not impossible later for East and West Germany to have developed as separate units as they have today. Russia in 1946 and the U.S. in 1947 also violated the Potsdam agree ment and it largely lost its validity. (James Warburg, Berlin: Background and Future.)
Another major Western post-war mistake was made when the three Western nations decided to combine their zones into what became later a West German Republic. "The West," according to one authority, "had come to fear that a unified Germany would permit the Soviets to extend their control over all of Germany. The Soviets, at that time, were still genuinely interested in German unity. . ." (Carter, Ranney, Herz, Major Foreign Powers, p. 646) The West wanted to establish in Germany a western type of democracy in a decentralized loose federal system, whereas the Soviet Union wanted a centralized government with a central police force along the lines of the system later developed in East Germany.
This Western action resulted in the creation of an East German regime and eventually an attempt by the Russians to put the West out of Berlin on the ground that Germany was no longer one unit and four-power government had in fact ceased to exist. The Berlin blockade and airlift in 1948-1949 followed and in 1949 was resolved by another agreement.
Following the formation of West and East Germany, the Russians set up some para-military groups in East Germany and in September, 1950, Secretary of State Dean Acheson demanded that West Germany be rearmed. The decision to rearm was made and later, after West Germany became an independent republic in 1955, it became a member of NATO.
One reason for Russian urgency in demanding a solution to the German problem is the rearmament of Germany by the United States. Russia fears that an armed West Germany, especially if armed with nuclear weapons as has been proposed in some quarters, might some day precipitate a war in order to regain former German territory now in the hands of Russia and Poland.
Core of the Problem
The United States claims that the unification of Germany is the first and necessary step to the solution of the Berlin crisis. At the same time, however, it is unwilling for West Germany to give up membership in NATO. This means that if Russia were to consent to unification, she would in effect be agreeing to East Germany becoming a part of an anti-Soviet military alliance under American leadership. This is a proposal we know the Russians cannot accept and is therefore not a serious negotiating position.
If Germany is to be unified, it obviously must be done in such a way as not to add West Germany to the Soviet side or East Germany to the American side - in other words, some type of neutral status is necessary. One possible pattern for such a proposal is the successful treaty neutralizing Austria; it resulted in a withdrawal of both Russian and American troops.
For this reason a number of statesmen including George F. Kennan of the United States and Hugh Gaitskill of the British Labor Party have endorsed a proposal that would result in withdrawal of Russian and Western troops from Germany and certain other countries. One such proposal made by Adam Rapacki, Polish Foreign Minister, on October 2, 1957, was for a zone of Poland, Czechoslovakia, West and