EAST GERMANY: Shouting & Trampling

From the Soviet zone of Germany last week came stories of guerrilla bands attacking Vopos (People’s Police) and even Red army units. East Berlin’s Communist Neues Deutschland ran pictures of four Vopos recently killed near Cottbus. and rewards of 1,000 marks each were posted for three Czech refugees who. presumably, had done the killing. In special maneuvers, some 25,000 Vopos took to the field with full packs, sending scouting parties across the countryside, posting guards on the highways and digging foxholes. The East German Interior Ministry announced it had uncovered and smashed a number of “spy, sabotage and terror groups”—said to be directed from West Germany—and had seized their equipment, including weapons and U.S.-made radios.

What was all this hoarse shouting and furious trampling about? There was little or no reliable sign of another East German uprising like that of last June, tut the Soviet zone population was still restless and bitterly resentful, judging by the 16,600 refugees who slipped out under the Iron Curtain in October.

After the June explosion in East Germany, the first panicky reaction of the Communists’ fish-eyed strongman, Walter Ulbricht, was to appease. He canceled work norms and production quotas, increased food rations, encouraged dancing in the streets. Then, accompanied by several colleagues and stooges, he went to Moscow to find out what the master solution was to be. Not long after his return, the answer was clear—not relaxation but more terror and repression.

The Communists set out to identify and punish the rioters of the June uprising, to sniff out and crush every lingering trace of dissidence, and to discipline party members who were guilty of “capitulatory behavior.” Strongman Ulbricht fired Wilhelm Zaisser, boss of the SSD (the Soviet zone security police), reinstated the backbreaking work norms, launched a clattering campaign against Western “spies” and “saboteurs.” East German papers were crammed with lurid stories of arrests, trials, confessions and stern punishments. By last week, in the courts of cold-eyed Minister of Justice Hilde Benjamin, “the Red guillotine,” some 320 sentences had been handed out, including at least six death sentences and six of life imprisonment. The Red bosses began a complete screening of the 5,000,000 member East German trade unions and of the East German Communist Party (1,230,000 members). Along with the bigger stick, there were some carrots. Some food prices were lowered, and some of the lowest pay scales (e.g., of coal miners) were raised.

Whether more carrots or more stick is now in prospect, no one knows. Walter Ulbricht went to Moscow again on Oct. 6, presumably for new orders. He is not back yet.