Word: ulbricht
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...latest reminder of the city's vulnerability came last month when the regime of Communist Boss Walter Ulbricht began requiring West Germans to buy transit visas and pay cargo taxes when traveling or moving goods across East German territory to West Berlin. For a city that withstood an all-out Communist blockade in 1948-49, Ulbricht's new restrictions in themselves are little more than a nuisance. Nonetheless, they dramatized anew the perilous state of West Berlin's economic links-a fact that has frightened off both industry and labor...
...months ago, Brandt sought to establish diplomatic relations with all 'Eastern European countries except East Germany. Under pressure from Chancellor Kurt Kiesinger's Christian Democrats and from moderates in his own Socialist party, Brandt retained the Federal Republic's old insistence that it, and not Ulbricht's regime, is the legitimate representative of all Germans, including those in East Germany...
...summoning Brandt to East Berlin, the Soviets served notice that they will use their influence to frustrate Bonn's efforts to enjoy better relations with other Communist states until Bonn extends its desire for détente to Ulbricht's fiefdom. The West Berliners blame Russia as well as Ulbricht for their plight; an angry crowd of them marched on the Soviet memorial in the British sector, only to be turned away by bayonet-wielding Russian soldiers. Radio Moscow beamed some advice to West Berliners: "He who lives on an island must be friends with...
Facing such Soviet intransigence, many Socialists, especially those near Brandt, would like to respond to Ulbricht's travel restrictions by some daring move, such as abolishing the need for visas for other East bloc visitors to West Germany, in order to illustrate how anachronistic Ulbricht's restrictions are. In today's relaxing Europe, they also favor diplomatic recognition of East Germany in hopes that even a slight reduction in tensions there might help to create a situation in which the 74-year-old Ulbricht's successor, or perhaps his successor's successor, might turn...
Those desires are unrealistic at present, because the Christian Democrats refuse to go along with them. Many of them, on the contrary, favor a return to a far tougher line with the Soviet bloc and argue that West German concessions are likely only to encourage Ulbricht to tighten his grip on West Berlin. As they see it, deals between the two Germanys ultimately would erode the allied responsibility for West Berlin, still the city's best guarantee for safety...