Word: ulbricht
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...occasion of a visit to Berlin in 1967 to offer a U.S. guarantee of Poland's Oder-Neisse border to win over the Poles. Wladyslaw Gomulka, nervous at first, finally accepts an invitation to go to Washington. In February 1968, Erhard proposes to East Germany's Walter Ulbricht that joint plans be drafted for the formation of a German confederation, no longer insisting on free all-German elections or the tearing down of the Communist Wall as preconditions to the talks. Ulbricht is taken aback, but accepts when Erhard promises to renounce nuclear armament and maintain East Germany...
Ironically, it was East Germany's Red boss, Walter Ulbricht, 72, who inadvertently touched off the outburst. As a propaganda ploy, Ulbricht has for years written an annual letter to the Social Democrat Party in West Germany, piously imploring the SPD as the representative of the working class to join with his Socialist Unity Party in bringing about German reunification. Each year the Social Democrats had refused to answer the detested Ulbricht-until this year. Reflecting West Germany's new and more flexible attitude toward the Communist bloc, the Social Democrats last month fired back a reply that...
...Ulbricht was so pleased to finally get a reply from the West that he overruled his advisers and ordered Neues Deutschland, the official daily paper, to print the SPD letter. Though an East German rejoinder rejecting the Western proposals ran alongside, East Germans did not seem to notice. They were seized with excitement at the sudden start of a dialogue between East and West. The issue of Neues Deutschland, which was snatched off the newsstands within minutes when the letters appeared late last month, was selling last week on the black market at 40 to 50 times the original price...
Bonn has wrapped its border barters in tight secrecy. One reason is fear of adverse public opinion. West Germans were initially revulsed by the deals, in which Ulbricht's cynicism reminded them of Adolf Eichmann's offer during World War II to swap Jews for trucks. There is also clear reluctance to upset the East Germans, who might end the arrangement if it proved embarrassing. So deep is this reluctance, in fact, that Western authorities have been cracking down hard on Westerners seeking to assist in the escapes of East Berliners. Last week three West Germans who helped...
...Price of Fat Dogs. Deutschmarks never change hands in the ransom deals. Ulbricht & Co. prefer to tap the cornucopia of West German industry for trucks and spare parts, and coffee, butter and citrus fruit, which East Germany considers "luxury" consumer goods. With time, a pricing system has evolved. Young prisoners such as Zippel and Trochim can be sprung for 15,000 Deutschmarks ($3,750), while the dicke Hünde (fat dogs) convicted of subversion and espionage pull down as much as $10,000 apiece...