(selected from the random copies in my collection - rwr -)
- NEUES DEUTSCHLAND (SED) - maintained that Berlin has been the capital of the GDR since the latter's foundation on October 7, 1949. It called East Berlin the "true Berlin, the Berlin of the future."
The paper said when the West Berlin Senat wishes to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the formation of Greater Berlin it deceives the public. "They want to glorify the Greater Berlin which they themselves have destroyed. He who like those forces bears the Cain's mark of division has no right to celebrate the gains made in a democratic popular struggle. The real situation is this: there is the socialist metropolis of the GDR where the progressive traditions have found their permanent home. And there is West Berlin, which is an autonomous political entity on, and in the middle of, the territory of the GDR."
- NEUE ZEIT (east CDU) and NATIONAL ZEITUNG (NDP) - expressed similar views.
[--rwr note: above is a concise summary of the view of the East German government regarding the status of West Berlin. The reference to Greater Berlin is to the metropolitan government formed in 1920 of old Berlin and its suburbs in the model of New York City and Greater London.]
- NEUES DEUTSCHLAND - also headlined an attack on Nixon for aiding Israel while the Arab world was mourning the death of Egypt's Nasser. As a sidelight, ND noted:
"The papers of the SS heir and Israeli banker, Springer, with primitive joy revel in their allegation that Nasser's death intensifies the crisis in the Middle East. Thus they lay open the cards of imperialism, its obscure hopes and intentions."
- NEUES DEUTSCHLAND (SED) - extended a cordial welcome to the Warsaw Pact comrades-in-arms of the GDR who have arrived to participate in large-scale military maneuvers. The fact that the soldiers of the other socialist states were greeted with sympathy and love by the people of the GDR has its good reasons, the paper said, for the troops will demonstrate their comradeship-in-arms which guarantees that our peoples can continue to peacefully build socialism and communism without being disturbed. It said soldiers of socialism are soldiers of peace who protect the socialist gains and check the imperialist aggressors.
The East press was dominated by stories on the 21st anniversary celebrations of the GDR.
- DIE WELT - carried a lengthy editorial over the name of its publisher Axel Springer, noting that the fate of Berlin may be decided in these days and weeks and any decision about Berlin is a decision about Germany. [-- rwr note: most of the text is here, if you need more information - and it is a fairly good representation of the point of view that West Berlin should not be cast adrift as an autonomous entity.]
Ironically, on the same day, - NEUES DEUTSCHLAND - attacked Springer in a sideways comment while criticizing the Berlin SPD for its stiffening attitude against concessions in the Four Power negotiations. [-- rwr note: their commentary follows below Springer's.]
Springer warned that a reduction of the FRG engagement in Berlin would have fatal consequences for the real life of the city and its viability. Maintaining the viability of Berlin is one of the "three essentials" which the Americans developed under President Kennedy and which they will abandon only if "we suicidally encourage them to do so."
Springer expressed the view that Berlin would be lost without the unreduced responsibility of the three Western powers and its political association with the FRG. He warned that "good behavior" has never been honored by dictatorships; the Free World can experience that daily in its confrontation with [the] Soviet Union and its allies.
Springer recalled that although originally no altitudes in the air corridors were fixed, the Western Allies at one time yielded to the Soviet demand and agreed to 10,000 feet on which jet planes are still flying uneconomically today. The Soviet Union has honored that in all those years by nothing but growing harassment on the ground routes. "Neither the protecting powers of Berlin, nor the Federal government, nor the Senat [West Berlin City Council] would be well advised if with their political deliberations they would 'fly at too low an altitude' now that Berlin is at stake," the publisher said.
The Welt publisher warned that it would be a "Soviet success and a lost battle for the West" if the three Western ambassadors agreed to discussing only West Berlin instead of the whole city. Whenever Berlin was discussed in the past, it was all of Berlin, it was all of Berlin, he said, and so it must be today. Even if the Wall will not fall, the discussion must incessantly include those realities which the Soviet Union has been creating in its sector of the city for many years -- the permanent residence of the Volkskammer [People's Chamber or legislature], the State Council, the SED government, and the presence of GDR soldiers on a territory which is a four-power area, in a word the GDR presence in East Berlin, Springer said.
"If all that were tacitly ignored and accepted, a suicidal rule would be recognized. The Soviets would uncontestedly keep what they claim illicitly, while we would allow to be put in doubt that which we have rightfully kept."
Springer said the Kremlin leaders do not shrink from stating frankly what they want and Soviet Embassy Secretary Popov in Bonn on Sep 9 made no bones about the Soviet goals. These Soviet goals, Springer said, must be countered.
He complained that the vision of Berlin as present and future capital of a unified Germany has been abandoned for the sake of that which appeared as "sober realities," but it was not noted that "the Soviet visions of yesterday are the realities of today and that our visions, if only we cling to them and set them against the others, may be the realities of tomorrow.
Springer described it as wrong to see the Federal president's right to reside in Berlin and the Bundestag's right to convene here as a "demonstrative FRG presence." These rights, he said, are more than demonstrations. If they are abandoned, the rulers in the Soviet Union and the Soviet Zone, would "realize sooner than we that we have abandoned ourselves. No one in Washington, London and Paris could precipitately feel relieved at it, for the Berlin garrisons of the protecting powers would then -- and only then -- be on a lost post.
"The whole world is looking again at Berlin. What will it see? It will either see how Moscow and East Berlin will triumph over the weakness of Western administrators who only seek to settle the traffic difficulties of a provincial exclave while in reality the whole area is at stake. Or they will see how politicians of the Wet defend the freedom of Berlin, its political belonging to the FRG, and its world political rank," Springer concluded.
Calling attention to the increased anti-Communism as it is propagated also by the SPD and by Social Democratic papers like West Berlin Telegraf, which in turn are acclaimed for their attitude by Springer in papers like Die Welt, the SED daily was convinced that "the emphasis which the SDP leaders place on known facts (no unanimity between SPD and SED, for example) also pursues the goal of yielding to the pressure of the rightist-extremist forces against the Moscow treaty.
"The policy of peaceful coexistence, from which resulted tha conclusion of a renunciation-of-force treaty between the USSR and the [German] Federal Republic, in fact does not rescind the contradictions of the class [? a word missing here] and does not entail an end of the class struggle. The socialist and imperialist social system [s] continue to be divergent and irreconcilable. We are confronted in part with new trends in the world-wide dispute... Peaceful coexistence does not mean ideological coexistence, even less so a rapprochement of the systems. It involves a part and a form of the class struggle. Such a class struggle predominantly waged in the ideological field is more complicated of course. To many people the imperialist wolf appears as a kind grandmother. But in reality it is like in the fairy tale, a wolf remains a wolf.
"It is often difficult, of course, to recognized the ideological diversion in its beginning. A disguised grandmother often works out quite nicely. And with the help of modern technology, viz. radio and TV, it easily reaches many people.
"An important method employed by West German imperialism towards the GDR at the present time is the attempt of nursing illusions on the political goals of imperialism and thus to paralyze alertness against attacks. But anti-Communism remains the most important weapon in the ideologic fight of imperialism. That its symptoms change is of no importance.
"The dispute which is getting more complicated and which intensifies requires an even greater ideological clarity on our part in the struggle against any variety of bourgeois ideology... Hence, the changes to force imperialism to accept the policy of peaceful coexistence is no reason for us to become inactive. The best guaranty for further political success in the incessant strengthening of the individual socialist countries in the economic, politico-ideological, and military fields, and most of all the strengthening of the whole socialist community which is the main force in the anti-imperialist fight."
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The detailed stories translated were mostly about East-West relations. No story was translated on this, and none was listed for the East press.
- BZ and others - Three days after the arrest of ex-lawyer Horst Mahler, left-wing extremists have started a wave of terror in Berlin. "Solidarity with Mahler" was the inscription of handbills which were wrapped around stones thrown in the windows of the Bundeshaus. A little while later, the windows of a police station were smashed. At the same time the series of threatening telephone calls for the police reached a climax. "We'll shoot you one by one," anonymous callers announced. They said "action" would begin Thursday unless Mahler and his associates are set free by then.
When police came to Mahler's sealed apartment they detected a burglar inside. The police refrained from revealing the man's name and the purpose of his burglary.
- TELEGRAF, BERLINER MORGENPOST, et al - Back in North America, the FLQ in Quebec set another ultimatum for the release of 23 political prisoners and threatens to execute James Cross and Pierre Laport whom it holds as hostages. [--rwr note: This close-to-home story was much bigger in the U.S. at the time than the Berlin activities, I believe.]
- DER TAGESPIEGEL -- Renate Wolff, 22-year-old co-ed wanted in connection with the three Berlin bank holdups of Sep 29, has been arrested. She is suspected of having rented the six West German automobiles used for the crimes and having driven several of them to West Berlin.
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