HARVARD UNIVERSITY
RUSSIAN RESEARCH CENTER

ABRAM BERGSON, Director

1737 CAMBRIDGE STREET
CAMBRIDGE 38, MASSACHUSETTS

May 23, 1966

Professor Henry Kissinger
Center for International Affairs
6 Divinity Avenue

Dear Henry:

Walter Laqueur has requested a contribution from me on Germany for a forthcoming issue of SURVEY. He would especially like an elaboration of my reasons for concern about the broadening of East German - West German contacts now in progress. To meet this request I should like to use some of the arguments which I advanced in my chapter on Eastern policy for this symposium (especially pp. 650-662). Needless to say, the context and presentation would be rather different from the one which framed our deliberations.

The purpose of this note is to request your permission in effect to quote from myself. I don't imagine that you will have any objections, but I would be most grateful for an explicit expression of your permission to proceed as planned.

MC/mt

MAY 24 1966

December 7

DEC 8 - 1965

Dear Henry,

Do you happen to know Paul Wohl, who is, I think, a free-lancer for the Christian Science Monitor? In any case, he has just written to ask me to help found an "American Society for the Study of East Germany" for the purpose of helping to disseminate information about "this little known area." (Shades of that new informal grouping of British Laborites?)

I am enclosing a copy of my letter of reply to Wohl on this matter. Over and above that, I am wondering what, if anything, might one might do to thwart this potentially harmful development. Or does one merely chalk it up as yet another "objective pressure" working against the Federal Republic, of the sort we were talking about last week.

If you have any thoughts on this matter, I should be grateful for them.

December 7, 1965

Mr. Paul Wohl
15 Charlton Street
New York 14, New York

Dear Mr. Wohl:

This is to acknowledge your letter of December 2.

Unfortunately, I shall be unable to be in New York on December 15th when you propose to hold a preparatory meeting of your projected study group.

Furthermore, on reading the statement of background and purpose of the projected new group which you also sent along, my reaction was distinctly negative. It seems to me that while something could be said for the establishment of an American study group on the problem of Germany's reunification, there is scant justification for such a group to study East Germany alone. Indeed, any such "private agency" whose announced purpose would be "to further cultural exchange with and promote acquaintance with East Germany" would in my view be distinctly harmful to American foreign policy and more especially to American relations with the Federal Republic of Germany. It is my own firm conviction that the last thing responsible Americans should be trying to do is to facilitate the acceptance of East Germany as a permanent fixture on the international scene.

MC/mt

HARVARD UNIVERSITY

FACULTY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES

DEPARTMENT OF GOVERNMENT

CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS 02138

December 13, 1965

Professor Henry Kissinger
Center for International Affairs
6 Divinity Avenue
Cambridge, Mass.

DEC 14 1965

Dear Henry:

Thanks for your note of December 10. I really wish there
were something more which could be done to discourage the formation
of an American-Bash German society or at least to keep the West
Germans from overestimating the import of any such group.

My contribution to _In Search of Germany_ is now ready in final
form. You will notice that, as you requested, I have added several
paragraphs toward the end (pp. 102-4) summarizing the "objective
pressures" on the Federal Republic in the direction of the course
which we both lament. Otherwise, I have taken care of your other
minor points and even managed to edit my own prose in one or two
instances.

At this expensive season of the year, one's thoughts inevitably
turn to vulgar material matters. I should therefore be happy to
receive my one thousand dollar honorarium for the piece, but, if
possible, in the form of a check post-dated to January, 1966.
This will serve the double purpose of reestablishing my credit
rating for the Christmas season, while deferring the claims of
the United States Internal Revenue Service for another calendar
year.

Many thanks.

December 3, 1965

Mr. Melvin Croan
1737 Cambridge Street
Cambridge, Massachusetts

Dear Mel:

I have now read your revision and I think you have
done a splendid job. I have made a few minor nit-picks
on the enclosed pages which I am sure are easy to fix and
which you are free to ignore if you disagree with me.

The only suggestion of a substantive nature is that
towards the end you are not, in my view, making sufficiently
clear the objective pressures which might lead the Federal
Republic in the direction of the course you rightly deplore.
You make it sound as if you are arguing with a few misguided
individuals where, in fact, you are dealing with a powerful
trend which is even--foolishly--encouraged by us.

Could you look over your manuscript again to see
whether a few paragraphs could be inserted towards the
end to take care of this? Otherwise, I think you have done
a superb job.

With kind regards.

HOTEL KÖNIGSHOF

BONN · KOBLENZER STR. 9-11

Bonn, September 16

Dear Henry,

Thanks for your criticisms and the return of the manuscript, which just arrived. As my embarrassment upon delivery of the piece may have suggested, I am fully conscious of its shortcomings, both in style and analytical focus. Your suggestions for revision correspond closely to my own thoughts about the piece since its delivery, and I am prepared to offer您 zweite verbesserte Ausgabe by the 1st of October. I shall be back to Cambridge next Weds. and revision will be the first order of business.

Incidentally, this has been an enormously valuable trip for me and, among other things, has convinced me more than ever of dangers confronting the Federal Republic in its eastern relations. I have regards for you from all sorts of people, ranging from Countess Dünhoff to Alfons Dalma (Franz Josef didn't offer his greetings.) But the single most perceptive person about German politics remains, in my book, Fritz Rene Allemann. Fritz Rene might well have made a significant contribution to the volume: he is presently working on a study of the various Lünder and is particularly good on the various forms of nationalist resurgence as well as on the analysis of the structural peculiarities (deformities?) of parliamentary government as practiced in Bonn. You might want to keep Allemann's name in mind for possible future invitation to Harvard.

For now,

Telefon: Sammelnummer 31831 · Fernschreiber: 8/86535 · Telegramm-Adresse: Royalhotel Bonn

Absender ist nicht das Hotel

Nonstopdienst Köln/Bonn · New York

Lufthansa

Ihr IATA-/FLUGREISEBÜRO oder Lufthansa Bonn,
Kaiserhalle und Martinstraße 6. Tel. 31701, beraten Sie gern.

Nr. 663 C. 10000 L. Roland-Werbung-West, Dören (Rhld.) Nachdruck verboten.

BRISTOL HOTEL KEMPINSKI

RESTAURANT KEMPINSKI · GRILL-BAR · CAFÉ-TERRASSE

1 BERLIN 15 · KURFÜRSTENDAMM 27

Telefon: 91 06 91

Telex: 018 3553

Sept. 10

Dear Joan,

Although I have not yet received the piece which I left
with Henry Kissinger with his comments, I have decided that
if it is to fit at all in the projected study, some major changes
will have to be made. Therefore, this note to request that the
present text *not* be duplicated or circulated. Indeed, I would
appreciate its return to me on this trip, so that I can get at
it as soon as possible. Incidentally, I have decided to stay
through the 22nd. My address from the 15th to the 22nd is:

Hotel Königshof
Bonn, Germany

Many thanks for your assistance,

Das Hotel ist nicht der Absender. No. 1811 C. 10000, III. 65. RWB. Tel. 34 49 28

BANK FÜR HANDEL UND INDUSTRIE

DRESDNER BANK

HAUPTVERWALTUNG; BERLIN 12 (CHARLOTTENBURG) · UHLANDSTRASSE 9-11 · ECKE KANTSTRASSE · TELEFON: 325261

Nächste Zweigstelle: Kurfürstendamm 26a, Ecke Fasanenstraße · Telefon: 91 65 25

September 10, 1965

Professor Melvin Croan
Hotel Excelsior am Hauptbahnhof
München, Germany

Dear Mel:

I have now read your paper carefully. I made marginalia
as I went along and I am sending those on to you. Some of my
comments were dealt with by you in subsequent paragraphs. In
those cases you might simply look at your manuscript to see
how you could improve its clarity. In other cases you may object
to my suggestions and this is, of course, your perogative.

In addition to the detailed comments it seems to me that
your style is sometimes somewhat Germanic. When you go over your
manuscript again would you try to chop some of the long sentences
into two or three shorter ones? I have done a little rough editing
to show you the kind of thing that I have in mind.

My major concern with the paper as it stands is organizational.
It seems to me to lack a clear focus either in its own terms or in
relation to its major themes of our volume. These themes, as you
know, are continuity and change in German policy and of the problem
of identity in Germany. I recognize that your subject matter may not
lend itself ideally to these themes but some aspects of your paper
could be accommodated within them.

Most importantly, the paper as it now stands seems to me to
lack a central theme. The five sections are almost separate essays
and the transitions between them are not at all clear.

This problem could, in my view, be dealt with in the following
manner. In your introductory section you might have a brief description

.....

manner. In your introductory section you might have a brief description
of this problem could, in my view, be dealt with in the following

I lack a central theme. The five sections are almost separate essays
Most importantly, the paper as it now stands seems to me to

could be accommodated within them.
I lead myself ideally to these themes put some aspects of your paper
of identity in Germany. I recognize that your subject matter may not
know, are continuity and change in German policy and of the problem
relation to its major themes of our volumes. These themes, as you
It seems to me to lack a clear focus either in its own terms or in
My major concern with the paper as it stands is organizational.

to show you the king of thing that I have in mind.
to two or three shorter ones? I have done a little rough editing
manuscript again would you try to copy some of the long sentences
your style is sometimes somewhat Germanic. When you go over your
In addition to the detailed comments it seems to me that

to my suggestions and this is, of course, your herpetologic.
How you could improve its clarity. In other cases you may object
to those cases you might subtly look at your manuscript to see
comments were dealt with by you in appendant barter. In
as I went along and I am sending those on to you. Some of my
I have now read your paper carefully. I made marginalia

Dear Mei:

München, Germany
Hotel Excelsior, am Handpapppot
Professor Melvin Croon

September 10, 1962

Professor Melvin Croan

- 2 -

September 10, 1965

of traditional German policy towards the East, its ambivalence (the
love-hate relationship and the occasional expansionism) and its
legacies. You might then explain that there are unique conditions in
post-war Germany which cause Germany's Eastern policy to be over-
shadowed by the issue of reunification. On that issue in turn the
chief focus of West German foreign policy has to be the Soviet Union
and the GDR with the East European states in a somewhat secondary
role. You might then re-work the subsequent material leaving major
portions of it as it is by relating it to this basic theme. Finally,
you need a concluding section pulling all the threads together.

As you see, Mel, I have taken your suggestion to be brutal
quite seriously. I feel all the freer to make these suggestions
because I think your paper has the makings of a really first-rate
contribution and one that would be an excellent balance to Karl
Kaiser's piece. I need hardly tell you how much I agree with your
concluding section.

We do have a time problem. I would like to get the book to
the printer in the second half of October and I would like to have
a chance to go over the papers once more.

Could you possibly let me have your revisions by the end of
this month?

I hope you have a useful trip.

With warm regards.

Henry V. Kiebler

Sincerely yours,

With warm regards.

this month?

Could you positively let us have your recommendations by the end of

a couple of days to go over the papers once more.

The printer in the second half of October and I would like to have
We do have a time problem. I would like to get the proof to

concluding section.

Kater's a nice. I need hardly tell you how much I agree with your
contribution and one that would be an excellent balance to Karl
because I think your paper has the merits of a really first-rate
duty seriously. I feel all the time to make these suggestions
At you see, Me!, I have taken your suggestion to be proved

you need a concluding section built up all the threads together.
portions of it as it is phrased relating it to the past etc. Finally,
role. You might then re-work the apportion material leaving major
and the GKB with the East European states in a somewhat secondary
chief focus of West German foreign policy has to be the Soviet Union
emphasized by the tasks of remobilization. On that issue in turn the
boet-wart Germany which causes Germany's Eastern policy to be over-
looked. You might then explain that there are undue conditions in
love-date relationships and the occasional expansionist) and its
of traditional German policy towards the East, its independence (the

Professor Melvin Gross

September 10, 1962

INTER NATIONES
Visitor's Office
53 Bonn
Buschstr.83
A.Z.: 7-080-84

Croan's
itinerary

Bonn, 23rd August 1965
Programming:
Frau M. von Bredow
tel:2 39 71

<table><tbody><tr><td>Saturday, 4th</td><td>23.50 hrs</td><td>Departure Boston by LH 421</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="2">Sunday, 5th</td><td rowspan="2">11.50 hrs</td><td>Arrival Frankfurt</td></tr><tr><td>guest will be welcomed by a representative of INTER NATIONES, Frankfurt Taunusanlage 21 tel:72 81 01. Hotel Intercontinental Frankfurt</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="3">Monday, 6th</td><td>09.50 hrs</td><td>Departure Frankfurt by LH 401</td></tr><tr><td>10.45 hrs</td><td>Arrival Hamburg</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>guest will be welcomed by a representative of INTER NATIONES, Hamburg Grosse Bleichen 27, tel:34 08 51</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="2">Tuesday, 7th<br/>Wednesday, 8th</td><td></td><td>Aocommodation: Hotel Berlin, Borgfelderstr. tel:26 43 51</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Stay in Hamburg. Programme will be arranged by INTER NATIONES, Hamburg.</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="3">Thursday, 9th<br/>Friday, 10th<br/>Saturday, 11th</td><td>18.00 hrs</td><td>Departure Hamburg by PA 612</td></tr><tr><td>18.50 hrs</td><td>Arrival Berlin</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>guest will be welcomed by a representative of the Federal Office of Press -and Information Berlin, Hardenbergstr.27a tel:91 03 91</td></tr><tr><td></td><td></td><td>Aocommodation: Bristol Hotel Kompinski Kurfürstendamm 27 T: 91 06 91</td></tr><tr><td></td><td></td><td>Stay in Berlin. The Programme will be arranged by the Visitor's Office of the Federal Office of Press -and Information</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="2">Sunday, 12th<br/>Monday, 13th<br/>Tuesday, 14th<br/>Wednesday, 15th</td><td>17.30 hrs</td><td>Departure Berlin by PA 697</td></tr><tr><td>19.20 hrs</td><td>Arrival München</td></tr><tr><td></td><td></td><td>guest will be welcomed by a representative of the Bavarian State Chancellery München, Prinzrogentenstr.7 Tel:22 81 41</td></tr><tr><td></td><td></td><td>Accommodation: Hotel Excelsior am Hauptbahnhof tel:55 79 06</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="2">Thursday, 16th<br/>Friday, 17th<br/>Saturday, 18th<br/>Sunday, 19th<br/>Monday, 20th<br/>Tuesday, 21st<br/>Wednesday, 22nd</td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td></td><td>11.45 hrs</td><td>Departure München by LH 402</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>12.50 hrs</td><td>Arrival Köln/Wahn</td></tr><tr><td></td><td></td><td>guest will be welcomed by a representative of INTER NATIONES, Bonn, Buschstr.83</td></tr><tr><td></td><td></td><td>Accommodation: Hotel Königshof Tel:3 18 31</td></tr><tr><td></td><td></td><td>Stay in Bonn. Programme will be arranged by INTER NATIONES, Bonn.</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>11.20 hrs</td><td>Departure Köln/Wahn by LH 312</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>12.05 hrs</td><td>Arrival Frankfurt</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>14.00 hrs</td><td>Departure Frankfurt by LH 420</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>17.05 hrs</td><td>Arrival Boston</td></tr></tbody></table>

April 22, 1964

Professor Henry Kissinger
Center for International Affairs
6 Divinity Avenue
Cambridge 38, Mass.

Dear Henry,

In view of the new elements of un-
certainty in my own schedule over the
coming eight months, I think that it
would be best not to count on a contribu-
tion from me for the German project.
Although I should still like to try to
attend at least one of this week's sessions
on the book, I imagine that this is no
longer especially essential.

P.S. I am enclosing a reprint of a recent
impressionistic piece of mine on the other
Germany, which you may find of interest.

HARVARD UNIVERSITY

FACULTY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES

DEPARTMENT OF GOVERNMENT

LITTAUER CENTER M-22
CAMBRIDGE, MASS. 02138

August 17

Dear Henry,

This is merely a brief note to assure you
that I am presently hard at work on my contribution
to the volume on Germany. The writing will take
some days yet but I am fully motivated by what
the Communists nowadays call "material incentives,"
namely, in my case, the one thousand dollar
honorarium. So you are bound to have the piece
by the end of the month. OK?

With best wishes,

Melvin Croan

OF WALLS AND UTOPIAS

Melvin Croan

‘ON the inside face of the wall of the first circuit there are painted all the mathematical figures; more in number by far than all those discovered by Archimedes and Euclid; each figure drawn with care in proportion to the wall itself; every one of them with its own little verse containing definitions and theorems.’

The narrator is a Genovese sea captain whose travels have taken him to a unique commonwealth, a veritable City in the Sun. But he is not speaking now directly from the pages of Thomas Campanella’s sixteenth century utopia, *Civitas Solis*. His narration appears instead in the issue of *Neues Deutschland* for 13 August 1963. For a member of that paper’s editorial staff, whose name happens to be Wessel (Harald—not Horst), has chosen the second anniversary of the erection of a different wall to acquaint the SED party daily’s readers with Campanella’s vision. The olden visionary, he assures them, would applaud the Berlin Wall. It may lack the graphic lessons in the arts and sciences which Campanella would have liked. But it goes one better—at least as concerns history. ‘Our protective wall imparts historical instruction even without reliefs’, for ‘it helps the politically retarded in Schöneberg [the seat of the West Berlin Government], Bonn, and Washington, to learn to understand somewhat better the laws of development of our time.’ And even more remarkably, ‘it has saved the peace in Europe . . . by thwarting the aggressor before he could undertake his aggression’. Thus, if Campanella could come back to life and see for himself the many wonders of the present-day Wall, he would, according to Herr Wessel, be ‘made very happy.’

Even the most party-minded of *Neues Deutschland’s* readers can be excused for reacting to this pointed lesson on walls and utopias with something other than sympathetic agreement. Of all people, precisely these steadfast adherents of the official line are most fully aware that, the prevailing euphemism notwithstanding, ‘the anti-fascist defence wall’ was needed not so much to keep the undesirables out as to keep the unwilling in. They know too that the Berlin Wall—and the popular reaction to it—necessitated still further restrictive measures. In the summer of 1962 the Baltic sea coast was effectively sealed off; its beaches and playgrounds now give over a goodly portion of their sandy expanse to the contrived desolation of prohibited zones returning only the eerie shadows of barbed wire and watchtowers. And in May 1963 there was issued an administrative decree which prohibited private individuals from making contact with foreign embassies in East Berlin without prior official authorisation. The decree, it was rumoured, aimed to curb the subversive activities of the ever eager embassy of the Chinese People’s Republic. That may well have been true. But it was certainly

OF WALLS AND UTOPIAS

53

only one part of the full explanation. Another important reason was the regime's embarrassment at having its citizens turn up in Warsaw in the vain hope of discovering an unobstructed route of final passage to the West.

All of these 'protective' measures could hardly fail to convince the population that East Germany has been deliberately made over into a forbidden country. In fact, travel to the world outside has become a virtual impossibility for the average East German. With travel to the East, including the Soviet Union, now as tightly controlled as travel elsewhere, a sanctioned leave of absence from the GDR stands out more clearly than ever before for what it was always intended to be: an integral and carefully manipulated component of the regime's elaborate system of rewards to socially productive and ideologically reliable elements of the population.

LEST this discovery have too demoralising an effect on the vast majority who can qualify on neither count, the regime has been compelled to undercut its own propaganda on the purposes and benefits of the Wall. Thus it happens that the East German authorities currently promise a cordial reception for all outsiders, not merely visitors from the communist countries and the non-aligned nations, but also tourists from the West and more especially visitors from West Germany. So far, however, this promise of cordiality has consisted of about six parts pretence to less than one full part of practical programme. To the first category belong such items as two recently published guide books. The first, a handsomely illustrated *Guide to the German Democratic Republic*, appeared well over a year ago. As such publications go, it is quite serviceable, but it is also heavy and bulky because so much of the lengthy text is taken up by a clumsy exposition of the familiar propaganda line: viz., the GDR constitutes a separate but sovereign German state, where life is entirely normal and energies fully engaged in the peaceful pursuit of building socialism. To supplement this inclusive volume, there appeared in the summer of 1963 a more specialised and less expensive paperback guide to Berlin, 'the Capital of the GDR' (i.e. East Berlin alone). Once again the political message is the same; once again the guide is nonetheless a useful one. Both guide books have sold well. Who buys them? In the main, it is the East Germans themselves. This does not displease the regime. For the books were really produced for their benefit. Beyond the opportunity thus provided to acquaint the readers yet again with the regime's view of its own *raison d'être*, the very fact of the publication of aids to tourism can perhaps serve to dilute the population's sense of being entirely cut off.

This is not to report that no outside visitors come at all. If there are not many, there are still some. West Berliners, of course, are still excluded. They are not even welcome in the eastern sector of their

54

MELVIN CROAN

own city.* (This, ostensibly, in retaliation for the refusal of the West Berlin authorities to allow representatives of the East German travel agency to sell visas in West Berlin.) West Germans, however, are in a considerably more favourable position. For cause—to visit relatives mainly—and with the prior permission of the local police to travel and reside within precisely circumscribed areas of the GDR, they may enter. But even then their entry will be no simple formality. The delays to which citizens of the Federal Republic have been subject are notorious. Wherever they may choose to cross, be it in Berlin or at one of the other points along the zonal barrier to the West thrown up as long ago as 1952, all of their papers must be 'strictly in order'. The painstaking check for irregularities is the border bureaucrat's passion. Scratch a West German and you find a fascist. So long as that is the official watchword, and it can scarcely be otherwise, no amount of vigilance is really sufficient. From which there follows a natural bent to petty harassment of all West Germans, indiscriminately and on principle. (When I complained of the inconvenience of a two-hour delay in crossing into East Berlin to a border guard who seemed friendly enough despite the submachine gun slung over his shoulder, his answer was that I should consider myself lucky not to be a West German. 'They', he confided, 'really get the works'.) For all that, though, West Germans can visit the GDR much more easily than most other Westerners. With the conspicuous exception of certain professional anti-Germans from the West who, with quite good reason, are counted as present or potential sympathisers of the SED regime, the prospects for a chance Westerner to receive anything more than a transit visa are still problematic. If nothing else, the elaborate and cumbersome East German bureaucratic machine which demands multiple copies of a lengthy application form and requires at least a month to digest the information, works against it. And should the would-be visitor be admitted, his troubles will only have begun. Among other things, he must expect the close surveillance of the secret police, according to that law of modern dictatorship which holds that the perfection of police control is directly proportionate to the state of backwardness of tourism from abroad. Despite the guide books and posters, the Western visitor is not really very welcome. The Wall remains a wall.

THE Wall in Berlin, though of one piece, nonetheless exhibits an astonishing variety of exterior faces. At Bernauer Strasse, in once Red Wedding, the Wall's otherwise unimpressive height is greatly enhanced thanks to the tallness of the emptied and now bricked-up buildings which flank it from behind. Here the odour of death is still strong, for its cult is perpetuated by memorials erected on the Western side to those who vainly attempted to plunge to freedom. Near the Brandenburg

* [This article was written before the agreement on Christmas passes to East Berlin.
—ED.]

OF WALLS AND UTOPIAS

55

Gate, however, where the greenery of the Tiergarten softens the scene, a quite different atmosphere prevails. The endless balls of barbed wire, unrolled this time by the West to guard the Soviet War Memorial and the approaches to the Wall itself from the storm which they might otherwise invite, somehow seem to add to the sense of a showplace. Here, on a balmy summer afternoon, the air is full of the flavour of a pleasant Sunday outing. The throngs who jostle to mount the viewing platform for a fleeting gaze into the East seem utterly divested of political cares. Should individual figures appear upon the opposed platform behind the Wall, they will sooner receive a friendly wave than a hostile jeer. Here the West German tourist is in charge. Camera-happy as ever, his basic preoccupation is to position his chubby youngsters properly, so that they may be duly photographed against the backdrop of masonry. *Berlin ist eine Reise wert!* At Potsdamer Platz the scene is once again a different one. This is the intersection of the Soviet, American, and British sectors of Berlin, and the impression is that of a battlefield temporarily silent but still quite alive. No matter how bright the day or pleasant the weather, the atmosphere remains heavy and grey. The reason may be the desolation of the immediate environs on both sides of the Wall. In the West, a cluster of hastily improvised shops, selling postcards, cheap souvenirs, and other worthless trinkets does little to relieve the oppressive forlornness. One of their best-selling items turns out to be a view, available in a variety of sizes, in black-and-white or colour, of Potsdamer Platz as it once was, a bustling centre and crossroads of prewar Berlin. The original was taken unmistakably in the thirties; judiciously enough, it is offered now as the Potsdamer Platz of the summer of 1932.

The lot of the East German National People's Army detachments who must patrol these forbidding ramparts is not an enviable one. Mostly they are young recruits who have been brought in specially from the provinces for the job. Their ignorance of what lies beyond the Wall in West Berlin is rapidly becoming proverbial. (When I replied 'Kurfürstendamm' to a query about my own address in West Berlin, I got only an uncomprehending stare. 'Where is that?' 'In what district over there?') Every patrol consists of two men who are constantly rotated so that at any given time each soldier is in the suspect company of a total stranger. The regime has taken good care that there should be no buddies here. To make matters worse yet, there is confusion in their orders. They are to shoot to kill but they must now avoid at all cost shootings that can be witnessed from the West. There must be no escapes but equally there must be no visible blood. From these tensions of duty an occasional pass provides little or no escape. East Berliners publicly display their contempt for the youngsters of the National People's Army. There have been repeated incidents of the man in uniform being refused service in restaurants and pubs and, it is said, denied the favours of the ladies of the street. The army newspaper has recently complained of a wave of destructive hooliganism and roaring

56

MELVIN CROAN

intoxication among the troops in the barracks. It promises a thorough-
going investigation of the social causation. That hardly seems necessary.

IN Campanella's walled utopia there is but one 'great ruler'. He is,
we are told, 'head over all . . . the supreme authority', holding his
office 'in perpetuity'. Although no one in East Germany, an editor of
*Neues Deutschland* least of all, would venture to compare Walter Ulbricht
to the pontiff of the City in the Sun, the comparison is nonetheless
irresistible. Having gathered for himself all the leading party and state
offices, Ulbricht is unquestionably 'head over all'. Such were the
excesses of Ulbricht's seventieth birthday celebration—which dragged
on throughout the entire summer in a spectacle rarely if ever before
equalled in German history—that he seemed truly destined to hold power
'in perpetuity'. Amidst the flood of books, articles, and production
pledges in his honour, who could recall that ten years ago the odds
seemed entirely against his celebrating a single additional birthday in
office?

To be sure, Ulbricht's survival over the past decade owes less to any
hidden magic of his own than it does to a peculiar concatenation of
circumstances; circumstances, however, which he has been able to exploit
quite skilfully in the interests of his own power. This acumen and the
extraordinary display of the 'cult of personality' which it permits have
convinced some Western observers that Ulbricht is both a ruthless cynic
and an unreconstructed Stalinist. Beyond the fact that nowadays it is
quite difficult for any communist to be simultaneously both a cynic
and a Stalinist, neither accusation really hits the mark. To the present
day, Ulbricht remains essentially what he has always been: a disciplined
apparatchik. However absolute his power in East Germany may
currently seem, no one knows better than Ulbricht himself that circum-
stances have precluded any real independence of policy on his part.
*Salus sovieticae suprema lex.* When Stalinisation was the order of the
day, Ulbricht proved its effective practitioner. If Khrushchev calls for
destalinisation, Ulbricht is ready to carry out that order too—albeit
within the limits imposed by East Germany's 'specially complicated
circumstances', complications which Khrushchev seems fully to have
understood. The zigs and zags attendant upon the policies Ulbricht has
executed over the past four decades lie entirely beyond the reach of
conviction and cynicism. Beneath the man's extraordinary instinct for
power, its uses and manipulation, there also exists a residue of Victorian
bourgeois morality in the guise of Marxism of the sort so widely
prevalent in German Social-Democracy at the turn of the century. It
expresses itself in Ulbricht's simple life, a remarkable capacity for
sustained hard work, a devotion to nature and the out-of-doors, and
abstinence from alcohol and tobacco. In most men, Ulbricht's appall-
ingly narrow and permanently fixed set of mental images would be taken
as a sign of stunted intellectual development. That too is less important

[L.C]

OF WALLS AND UTOPIAS

57

than the capacity of this man's mind, such as it is, to banish self-doubt and thus to concentrate on the pursuit and exercise of power.

Not the least of Ulbricht's accomplishments has been to impart the style if not the substance of his own personality to the men around him. To the extent to which they all appreciate their common role as apparat-chiki who must work in a hostile and potentially explosive environment, this has served to arrest and sublimate tendencies to factionalist politics within the SED leadership. Their shared realism helps to explain the notable continuity in the leadership during the five years between the fifth SED congress (1958) and the sixth (1963). While the oligarchs have co-opted some young men such as Günther Mittag and Gerhard Grüneberg, with technical expertise in crucial policy areas—a develop-ment which may well spell trouble in the future for the old guard—for the present they remain fully in agreement among themselves and quite in charge of things in general.

The sixth SED congress recorded only one significant demotion from the leadership. Karl Mewis was ousted from the chairmanship of the State Planning Commission and simultaneously lost his position as candidate-member of the Politburo and his post as first secretary in Rostock as well. Known for his personal vanity, Mewis had made the mistake of playing up the cult of his own personality in Rostock to excess. Work on Rostock's deep sea harbour provided an irresistible temptation for a public display of the local boss's prominence; a display which produced claims on his behalf which dwarfed even those which a late governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts used to put forward on billboards announcing public works projects in that American state. Then, too, Mewis had been one of the prime movers in the campaign to collectivise East German agriculture in 1960. Rostock was the first district to report one hundred per cent collectivisation, well before the campaign had really gotten under way in many other districts of the GDR. The return for Mewis' forced pace came in the form of successive disasters in local agricultural production. As a result of all his efforts in his own behalf and for the construction of socialism, Mewis was appointed GDR ambassador in Warsaw. Evidently the choice did not exactly please the Poles; they elected to keep the ambassador-designate waiting for almost a month before accepting his credentials.

Besides Mewis, there has been only one other recent high level casualty of any real political interest. This is the case of Professor Karl Heinz Bartsch, an agronomist, whose career took a great stride forward at the sixth SED congress when he was elevated to the position of candidate member of the Politburo. Thereupon he was immediately assigned to fill the post of chairman of the newly created State Agricul-tural Council, with far-ranging responsibility to deal with the all too obvious chaos on that front. He held this position, however, for no more than forty-eight hours. For Bartsch, it turned out, had not only been a Nazi but also a member of the SS. When these facts were brought to light by a semi-private West Berlin agency which follows

58

MELVIN CROAN

these and other matters in East Germany, Bartsch's fall was immediate
and complete. It was not so much his unsavoury past which outraged
the party as the fact that he had deliberately and successfully covered
it up for so long. The *unbewältigte Vergangenheit* remains a problem
even behind the Wall. Small wonder that one of the regime's major
public spectacles during the summer of 1963 was the trial and conviction
*in absentia* of Hans Globke. How many Westerners who chanced to
see the 'GLOBKE-CRIMINAL WANTED' posters in the East realised
the multiple dimensions of the indictment?

THE apparent cohesion and purposefulness which attend the activities of the SED leaders do not really penetrate to its middle and lower level cadres. Closer to popular discontents and enveloped in the frustrations of the party's own bureaucratic network, their morale has never been very high. When they carry out orders from above in a strict and business-like manner, they are officially scolded for a 'heartless and bureaucratic attitude toward the masses'. When they relax and try to be more human, they are rebuked for capitulating to backward prejudices in the population or, worse yet, accused of giving ground to dangerous notions of 'a third way' between socialism and capitalism. In a word, the average SED functionary is caught in a withering crossfire with shots constantly exchanged between the party hierarchy on one side and the subject population on the other.

These party cadres are the people who have been most seriously demoralised by the public eruption of the Sino-Soviet dispute. They speak openly of the *Zusammenbruch*, a word that came into currency in contemporary German usage with reference to the total collapse of the Nazi *Weltanschauung* at the end of the second world war. Once ideological conviction was their strength and comfort in the face of both the changing line from above and the constant complaints from below. Now, with the fabric of communist universalism rent asunder to reveal strands of nationalist particularism, the inherent anomalies of the SED dictatorship in East Germany can no longer be so easily dismissed.

Although less willing to admit it publicly, the SED leaders are no less distressed by the disintegration of international communism than are the cadres of the lower echelons. Despite the prominence given to speculation to the contrary by reputable Sino-Sovietologists in the West, Ulbricht and his associates have never been pro-Chinese in any serious sense. The only credible evidence of really spontaneous enthusiasm for the Chinese road came from Paul Wandel who, dismissed in 1957 from his position as Central Committee Secretary for Culture and Education on account of his lenient treatment of 'revisionist' intellectuals, went to Peking for a period as the GDR's ambassador. (As for Grotewohl's seeming endorsement of things Chinese, he, it must be said, has not really had an idea of his own since he led the SPD into a merger with the communists. In any case, Grotewohl has been seriously ill for many years—some say leukemia; others, a nervous disorder.) The

OF WALLS AND UTOPIAS

59

real SED leadership, Ulbricht and those with whom he has surrounded himself, have always been in close step with the Soviet comrades in the ever quickening march towards a break with the Chinese. This, they have fully realised, was exactly what was required of them. If they have not relished the march, and now find the lengths to which it has gone extremely painful, there are quite good reasons for their discomfort. There can be no forgiving the Chinese for accusing the Soviet Union of willingness to sell out the GDR in order to obtain a nuclear test ban, nor the Albanians for their relentless vilification of Comrade Khrushchev, among other things on account of his alleged 'cowardice' in the Berlin question, nor even the Rumanians for their blatant assertion of their own economic self-interest. For, if nothing else, all of these things point up the SED's utter helplessness to date in its own dealings with Moscow. Much more was behind the vehemence which Kurt Hager, the Chairman of the SED's newly formed Ideological Commission, brought to his indictment of the Chinese, delivered before the July 1963 Central Committee plenum, than the fact that, as he put it, 'the leading comrades of the CCP got their training in the old Chinese society where it was customary to learn by rote such formulas and dogmas as the teachings of Confucius and then to apply them rigidly to daily life.'

HOW does the population as a whole react to all this? At first sight it seems to be a revealing measure of the degree to which the average East German citizen still attempts to resist associating himself with the regime that he will feign total uninterest in the Sino-Soviet dispute or, for that matter, in the recent defection to the West of Professor Hans Meyer, the Leipzig literary historian and critic. 'That is their affair, not ours', he will tell you, and then go on to complain of the inequities in the distribution of foodstuffs, the long wait for consumer durables and the like. The subjects which seem uppermost in his mind range from the inability of 'customer lists' at the local shops, the regime's informal rationing system, to guarantee a supply of edible dairy and meat products, to the outrageous prices being charged in the so-called *Exquisit* shops, where luxury items are readily available to members of the new class. (Visitors to East Berlin are advised to look in at one such establishment, *Kunst ins Heim*, on Karl-Marx Allee, formerly Stalinallee, to observe the *objets d'art* for sale there and to note carefully the prices being asked.)

To gauge public opinion in a totalitarian society remains a hazardous exercise, fraught with its own hidden pitfalls. The visitor to East Germany is likely to encounter his share of informants who reject in picturesquely profane language the communist regime and all its works. He will also meet, as if by pre-arrangement, his share of regime enthusiasts, and, if he is lucky, may even be exposed to some people who for reasons of psychological necessity as well as intellectual honesty will try to discriminate for him between the negative sides of their daily

60

MELVIN CROAN

existence and what is called the regime's 'positive achievements'. Beyond
this welter of opinions, pro and con, the inquiring traveller would do
well to read the East German provincial press (an embargo has been
placed on its despatch to the West since the autumn of 1961), and to
pay special attention to the letters-to-the-editor. Such columns regularly
contain quite candid expressions of many of the same basic concerns
and complaints which East Germans regularly send off to RIAS in West
Berlin. (That is a story in itself, for, despite uninterrupted jamming and
periodic campaigns against the American broadcasting station, East
Germans still manage to tune in. They continue to write to the station
as before, mailing their letters under cover to a chance address in West
Berlin with a request that they be forwarded. Such is the solidarity of
the Berliners with their compatriots behind the Wall that few, it is said,
of these letters fail to reach their final destination.)

Several striking points emerge from a consideration of all these
sources. First of all, East Germans have recovered from the shock of
13 August 1961. Public morale has climbed out of the depths of despair
to which it plummeted in the wake of the regime's action in Berlin and
the crackdown which followed in the GDR as a whole. To this day,
however, there is a marked difference between East Berlin, where the
atmosphere of military siege imposed in 1961 has not fully lifted, and
elsewhere in the country. The campaign to tidy up East Berlin and
to give it the grace and beauty befitting a capital has done little so far
to alleviate the sullen popular mood immediately behind the Wall. Else-
where, however, the regime's conscious effort to relax internal tensions as
part of its ostensible commitment to a relaxation of international tension,
has brought better results. This change, which incidentally came only
after Khrushchev removed his missiles from Cuba, is reflected in all
aspects of public life, with the conspicuous exception of the realm of arts
and letters, which is once again in the tenacious grip of official
obscurantism.

This is not to say that the population at large has come to accept
the Wall or to resign itself to the restrictions which followed. On the
contrary, the question with which the party's spokesmen and agitators
have had most frequently to deal is, 'why can't we travel freely to
visit relatives in the West?' The party leadership, up to and including
Ulbricht, have taken to evasive and defensive replies. But by trying
their utmost to place the blame squarely on Bonn and the West, they
also implicitly acknowledge that the present situation is eminently
abnormal and encourage hopes that it may soon be altered. This, in
turn, only means more headaches for the regime's propagandists.
Gratified as they were, for example, by the genuinely enthusiastic popular
response to the signing of the nuclear test ban treaty, they could only
be appalled to realise how widespread was the view that the next step
towards an international detente should be not a non-aggression pact
between NATO and the Warsaw Pact powers, but rather a total reversal
of the Soviet Union's previous policy on the German question. Just

OF WALLS AND UTOPIAS

61

how this is to come about, few East German opponents of the SED regime are prepared to say. On one point, however, there is surprising agreement. If the torrent of letters which have poured into RIAS ever since the first rumours of the possibility of credits from Bonn to the East German regime became public is any indication, there is universal rejection of any policy of concession to Ulbricht. On the contrary, what is proposed is an even tighter embargo on the GDR, in the expectation that such a punitive policy would produce immediate results. 'We will gladly suffer many more deprivations, if only it hastens the end of this regime.' The pathetic lack of realism in such sentiments is perhaps less noteworthy than the regime's evident failure to date to divest the population of its illusions.

Whatever his attitude towards the regime, the average East German citizen is in fact strikingly knowledgeable about the latest developments in the Western world and, however much he may protest his lack of interest, in communist bloc affairs as well. One explanation of the politicisation of East Germany's inhabitants, given especially by SED functionaries who have broken with the regime, is that the Ulbricht dictatorship is the best possible training school for democracy. It teaches people to think dialectically, the argument runs, so that they learn to sift the regime's propaganda, and to recognise and reject its lies. At the same time it somehow inculcates in the population a respect for the democratic values in which that propaganda seeks to cloak itself. In other words, according to exponents of this school of analysis, the experience of communist dictatorship produces convinced constitutional democrats. This assessment, it must be said, seems far too facile and far too optimistic. The most prominent characteristic of what may loosely be called the East German public mind is resentment pure and simple. This resentment may, to be sure, express itself as an assertion of the democratic ideals which lie embedded in the Marxist legacy. But just as often it takes quite different and much more ugly forms, ranging from an understandable but increasingly acerbic bitterness against the West to a blind affirmation, at least among the older generations, of the nationalist and regrettably also racist precepts of earlier periods of German history.

In its own devious way, the regime has succeeded in manipulating popular resentment for its own purposes. It may be far from having inculcated spontaneous support for the SED dictatorship, but it can claim some success in nurturing anti-Western sentiments, different perhaps in precise content from what it would desire, but anti-Western all the same. And closely connected with this, all the protests of individual East Germans to the contrary notwithstanding, is the growing consciousness among the population that for better or worse its own future is inescapably bound up with the powers-that-be in the land. For one thing is certain: So long as the regime remains effective master over its own far-flung network of repression, it need not fear for itself, no

62

MELVIN CROAN

matter how deep the popular resentment. 'They do not abstain from
doing violence to an enemy of the republic . . . who deserves no mercy',
wrote Campanella. And the GDR, Herr Wessel assured the readers of
*Neues Deutschland* on the second anniversary of the Wall, 'is on the
right road to becoming a City in the Sun'.

## Communications to the Editor

From Professor Alec Nove

Congratulations on a most interesting fiftieth issue. However, my
eyebrows rose when, in your own article, you referred to *Soviet Studies*.
You appeared to be asserting that, in the fifties 'it might be thought to
resemble an English-language edition of *Voprosy Ekonomiki*', a proposi-
tion hardly improved by the words 'as such (sic) it had its merits'. Yet
by 1956 the list of economist-contributors already included Naum Jasny,
Peter Wiles, Francis Seton, Gregory Grossman, Michael Kaser, Donald
Hodgman, myself, etc., etc. In its economics the journal was academically
strongest and politically respectable. I am well aware that the record of
the journal is open to some very legitimate criticism. But two points
would, I think, be in order. One is that the editors never turned down a
scholarly article submitted to them, repeatedly solicited contributions
from people whose views were very different from their own, and printed
slashing attacks on themselves (including one by me on the article cited
by Victor Frank in his criticism of the journal). This must be said in
fairness to them. The second point is that you might have found room
somewhere for a positive acknowledgment that *Soviet Studies* has made,
and is making, some contribution to the study of the Soviet Union. Both
you, Sir, and Victor Frank confine your generosity to saying that certain
undesirable statements are now not found (or are 'less and less frequently'
found) in our pages.

Yours faithfully,

A. Nove

Chairman of Editors,
*Soviet Studies*.

From Professor Basile Kerblay

Professor Mouskhély has drawn my attention to some unfortunate
inaccuracies concerning the Centre de recherches sur l'URSS et les Pays
de l'Est, Strasbourg, in my article on Soviet studies in France (Survey
No. 50) on two points: (a) the review devoted to Soviet periodicals l'URSS
et les Pays des l'Est — revue des revues, gives not only abstracts but also
detailed analyses of and original comments on the principal articles
published in the journals of the USSR and other socialist countries;
(b) the annual review l'URSS, droit, économie, sociologie, politique,
culture is not a digest—as the readers of Survey (July 1962) know—but
a collection of original articles with a very wide scope, as the title
suggests, by contributors from various countries.

Sincerely yours,
Basile H. Kerblay

ABRAM BERGSON, Director

March 3, 1965

Professor Henry A. Kissinger
Center for International Affairs
6 Divinity Avenue
Cambridge, Massachusetts

Dear Henry:

Thank you for your note of Monday.

As I feared all along that it might, the pressure
of other work has kept me from doing a contribution in
time for the scheduled March meeting. I am sorry that this
is the case.

MC/mt

ABRAM BERGSON, *Director*

January 6, 1965

Professor Henry Kissinger
6 Divinity Avenue

Dear Henry:

Karl Kaiser has given me a copy of Ferenc Vali's piece
and asked me to send my comments on it directly to you.

Quite frankly, I find the piece as it presently stands disappointing. It lacks a single unifying thesis and/or forceful general line of argument and its several subdivisions (chapters) do not tie together very well. I do think, however, that it might be salvageable if it were to focus on one basic issue with which Vali deals somewhat sketchily on pp. 9-36, that is, the role which the issue of reunification has played in German domestic politics. This, it seems to me, would offer a fresh and generally overlooked view on the evolution of the internal West German political scene. (In this connection, Vali's study really ought to include a discussion of the Berlin problem. The absence of such discussion is striking, even in his current format of presentation.)

As for the rest of the piece, I find the introductory potpourri of history, geography and culture (pp. 1-9) to be superficial and irrelevant in his context. Vali's second section (chapter) on reunification and the Oder-Neisse Line is not particularly impressive for it is not very comprehensive on the German side and tends to rely on the Polish side on the views of apologists for the Gomulka regime (the latter is somewhat inconsistent with Vali's own point that, for example, between 1958 and 1962 Gomulka showed no interest in any initiatives of his own in the German question, relying instead upon Khrushchev's attempt to force a radical change in Germany's position in international politics).

Chapter 3 is of rather dubious value, if only because of
its mishandling of the Jaspers argument and its questionable
interpretation of the East German scene.

In conclusion, I think that this might be a useful
contribution if Vali were to develop and extend his discussion
of reunification as an issue in German domestic politics,
pointing out how this issue does illuminate unique features
of post-war German political life.

I hope that these comments may be helpful.

MC/mt

cc: Karl Kaiser

June 18, 1964

Mr. Melvin Croan
Harvard University
Russian Research Center
1737 Cambridge Street
Cambridge, Massachusetts

Dear Mel:

Somewhat belatedly I would like to tell you how delighted I am
that you are going to try to do a piece for us on Germany's policy
towards Eastern Europe.

For your information, I am enclosing a summary of the meetings
about the German book which took place at Harvard in April to help
you in writing your paper. In a little while Karl Kaiser, who is
assisting me in the preparation of this book, will send you that part
of the transcript of our meeting which is relevant to your topic. In
addition to some of the points covered in the memorandum, I would like
to add two other considerations which may not apply fully to your
particular topic.

1. It should be kept in mind that this study will not appear before late summer 1965. It would, therefore, seem best to attempt to take into account the dynamics of the topics and try to emphasize those problems which can be expected to be relevant through the middle and long-term future.

2. As German foreign policy will not be dealt with in one general chapter but in different essays, you might try to keep in mind a number of questions you would like to see discussed in a chapter on German foreign policy. In this connection the problem of continuity and change would be especially interesting. To what extent have traditional patterns of thinking in the relations of Germany to the rest of the world been preserved? How relevant are they or could they become in the future? What might be regarded

...

April 6, 1964

Mr. Melvin Croan
Harvard University
Russian Research Center
1737 Cambridge Street
Cambridge, Mass.

Dear Mel:

This is just a note to tell you
that we have definitely scheduled the
discussions on the German book for
Thursday, April 23rd from 3:00-5:00 p.m.
and Friday, April 24th from 9:00-11:00 a.m.
here at the Center.

It would be very nice if you could
attend. Could you let me know about this?

With kind regards.

MERLE FAINSOND, Director
RICHARD E. PIPES, Associate Director

1737 Cambridge Street
MR DONOVAN'S OFFICE
CAMBRIDGE 38, MASSACHUSETTS

March 10, 1964

Dear Henry:

As I have tried, without success, over
the past several weeks to reach you by phone, I am
taking the liberty of writing you to inquire about
the fate of the Center's projected seminar on Germany.

I would be very interested in participat-
ing in the seminar and actually doing a paper for it
if it comes at an acceptable time. As things now
stand, my own desk is cluttered with unfinished work
so that it would be impossible for me to make a con-
tribution this spring. If, however, as may be the
case, the seminar has been postponed until next fall,
I would be quite willing to participate to the hilt.

MC/mt