Troubled Times / Unruhige ZeitenTroubled Times / Unruhige ZeitenMore to come.
7 Oct 00 - As I review the information that I've entered so far, and riffle through the next months' reports, several observations come to mind. Above all, the activities of the Extra-parliamentary opposition --either legal activities or illegal activities -- in West Berlin did not occupy the main attention of political leaders. Rather, their primary focus was on the delicate negotiations between multiple world powers-- even including the West Berlin city government. Not counting third parties such as the divided city's leadership, the negotiations underway by October 1970 included the United States, Great Britain, France, West Germany (FRG), Poland, and the Soviet Union. Each party kept checking with the other, and journalists worked hard to figure out the linkage between issues. Feeling somewhat left out of this process were conservative forces, epitomized by western newspaper publisher Axel Springer and the East German Communists, operating under the Socialist Unity Party of Germany label. Their views are presented in the October 1970 page.
The title of this
section, Unruhige Zeiten, comes from the inscription on a souvenir beer
mug presented to me by my co-workers when I departed Berlin Brigade in
August 1971. While (or perhaps, because) the situation was
serious in Berlin, needling humor continued. I had told a number
of people that I would never do anything as tacky as buying a ceramic
beer mug as a "war souvenir." Of course, my colleagues
could not resist doing that for me. All we could do was
laugh.
--rwr--