Word: ulbricht
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...East and West have moved toward détente, the symbols of the cold war have gradually disappeared. So have the cold warriors. The last of them was Walter Ulbricht, who died last week of heart failure at age 80 near East Berlin, from where he had ruled East Germany for a quarter-century. So ruthless was he in keeping the 17 million East Germans firmly in the Soviet camp that he was probably the most hated Communist Party leader in the world...
From April 30, 1945, when he returned to Germany from the Soviet Union (where he had spent the war years), Ulbricht was Moscow's man. Tireless and ruthless, he copied much of the repressive Soviet system. As head of the German Democratic Republic, he stamped out all political opposition, attempted to repress religion, and introduced a Stalinist-style censorship of all publications, broadcasts and literature. East German schools became Marxist indoctrination centers...
...Ulbricht's re-election caught most outsiders by surprise. Last May, Ulbricht was suddenly and unceremoniously ousted from his far more powerful post as party leader in favor of Erich Honecker, whom the Russians refer to as "our man." Most foreign experts were convinced that the gaunt and obviously sickly Ulbricht would also be dumped from his largely ceremonial post as Chairman of the State Council...
...East Germans had other plans. Since the chairman's job was mostly honorary, it made little sense to engender bitterness among Ulbricht's admirers by stripping him of his last shred of power...
More important, East Berlin might have used Ulbricht's re-election to flash a signal to Moscow. As events have shown, Ulbricht was fired at the insistence of the Russians, who wanted to ensure East German cooperation in negotiating a Berlin settlement. The East Germans are now engaged in almost nonstop negotiations with the West Germans. They may well reach agreement this week over new arrangements guaranteeing free transit to and from West Berlin and establishing more contact between the two parts of the divided city. Nonetheless, the East Germans may at the same time wish to indicate their...