GERMANY: No Nonsense

The Reds launched a nuisance offensive against Western Germany. For several days & nights last week, some 30,000 Red agitators and members of Red youth organizations had been crossing from East Germany into the Western zones. Many carried forged documents showing they were “refugees.” Their task: to stage “blitz rallies” against the Western powers in West German cities, cause disorder, confusion and fear. The expense accounts of these Red traveling salesmen, reported Socialist Kurt Schumacher, were met from the proceeds of a vast coffee black market operated by the Russians in their occupation zone.

West Germany proved ready for the invasion.

As soon as the Reds’ plans became clear, border guards were reinforced to prevent further crossings. West Germany’s police force of about 100,000 was issued carbines, tear-gas bombs and steel helmets, got busy building roadblocks on the approaches to target cities, notably Hamburg, Cologne, Düsseldorf, Dortmund, Essen. Policemen careened through the streets, sirens screaming, arrested 500 known Communist leaders as a preventive measure. The British called their Fourth Guards Brigade back from maneuvers to stand by for disorders in the Ruhr.

In the face of this show of force—and dampened by driving rain—the Reds’ day of “National Resistance” collapsed. There were minor riots in most West German cities, but all were quickly dispersed. At Munich, 300 Red agitators tangled with five policemen at the city’s famed October festival at which 50,000 Germans had gathered to drink beer. Promptly, 200 German riot squadsmen rushed to the scene, arrested seven Communists—and everyone went back to his beer. That was the pattern in most of Western Germany. Police tirelessly quenched “peace bonfires,” confiscated leaflets and arrested another 1,000 Communists. In Düsseldorf, a few days before, the British had requisitioned the Communists’ brand-new, $500,000 headquarters building to house British troops; when the Reds refused to move out, British troopers and German police moved in and took over the building in a room-to-room battle (see cut).

The Communists were more successful in Hamburg, where 3,000 Reds managed to stage a noisy demonstration before they were stopped by police. Sixteen policemen were injured.

The young West German republic had made a heartening display of nerve. Like their “Youth Rally” in Berlin last Whitsun, the Communists’ “resistance day” was a sodden fizzle.