Foreign News: The Shape of Puppetdom

The Russians were by no means going out of business in Berlin. Bit by bit, in the weeks since the blockade was lifted, Communism in Berlin had been wearing a friendlier falseface.

In post-blockade days, not quite so many Germans had “disappeared.” The curfew for the Soviet sector had been set back from 11 p.m. to midnight. Hungarian melons, Bulgarian grapes, Polish cranberries appeared in the markets.

Russian officials in the four-power city control board had lately consented to a joint battle against the potato bug. They agreed that East & West should honor each other’s postage stamps—and then urged the West Berliners to buy stamps cheaper with soft Soviet marks (“Every agreement we make, we lose,” lamented a U.S. official).

Poultry Week. The symbol for the build-up was Communist Artist Pablo Picasso’s “Dove of Peace.” Everywhere in the Soviet sector, on handbills, stickers and banners, the benign bird cooed Communist “pacifism.” Berliners only sneered at the “Trojanische Taube” (Trojan dove); they dubbed each propaganda flurry as “Geflűgel Woche” (Poultry Week).

Along with the doves, there was a great program for furbishing up the state buildings, the Russian embassy, the swank Bristol hotel; scaffolds lined the buildings on Unter den Linden.

Last week, while the stage properties were still in preparation, the Russians called out the actors. First there had to be some vigorous, almost forcible, prodding in the wings: the remnants of the non-Communist Liberal Democratic Party and Christian Democratic Union had to be rehearsed in their lines. Fat, ambitious Hermann Kastner, L.D.P. chairman, just returned from a visit to the Soviet Union, agreed fairly readily to “cooperate.” But Otto Nuschke, the aging, bumbling C.D.U. chairman, was brave enough to call for new elections in the Soviet zone. From the hinterland came telegrams urging the L.D.P. and the C.D.U. to hold fast, to demand new elections. At one point, Sovietofficials in mufti walked into a C.D.U. party headquarters, forbade the reading of more telegrams. Nuschke gave in. The performance began. In the main meeting hall of Hermann Goring’s former command post, with yellow chrysanthemums and pink cyclamens garlanding the speakers’ tables a “German Democratic Republic” was proclaimed by the Soviet Zone People’s Council, a resolution-passing catchall-Communist front. The republic was created simply by having the council transform itself — by unanimous vote — into a Volkskammer (people’s chamber), which is to be the lower house of a parliament. The Volkskammer moved forthwith to elect Communist Wilhelm Pieck president and Otto Grotewohl chancellor; Grotewohl calls himself a Socialist, but is a puppet. As for the cabinet, the Communists kept the important posts, tossed a few bones (such as the ministries of finance, health, labor) to the C.D.U. and L.D.P. When C.D.U.er Luitpold Steidle, former colonel in Russia’s Free Germany Com-mittee, heard that he was being considered as Minister of Labor, he exclaimed: “Labor! My God, I’m a farmer.” Heart’s desire of the new Volkskammer was a peace treaty. It badly needed such a benison to retrieve its reputation after one of its first acts: it set the date for new elections in the Soviet zone at Oct. 15, 1950.

Question to Answer. The new state was Russia’s answer to the Allies’ setting up the West German democratic government at Bonn. A big difference was that the West German state did not claim jurisdiction over the Western sector of Berlin; the Communist East German state did include the Eastern sector of Berlin —as its capital. This powerfully reinforced the Red argument that the Communists favored German unity while the Western nations were dismembering Germany.

Russia’s quick action seemed for the moment to take the initiative away from the Allies. Said one exasperated high U.S. official in Berlin: “If we had any moral courage we’d move the Western German capital here. We’d make Berlin’s economy a going concern. We’d show up this Soviet-zone economy and this phony Communist government. We’d show Eastern Germany wealth and freedom until the Russians couldn’t compete. The West Germans can’t do it alone — we have to help.”