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The building of walls,
the *** of barbed wire and barriers,
these could never for long divide peoples.
Never create a permanent prison
for the human spirit.
For the strength of a wall is measured only by the
fear of those who built it.
This was the city thirty years ago.
A city, then one of the greatest in the world. In size and stature,
ranking with London, Paris, Rome, New York.
Alive and a unity, this was Berlin in the 1930s.
No barriers at the Brandenburger Tor.
No guards at the Potsdamer Platz.
But this was Berlin before Hitler came to power.
1945.
And this was Berlin.
A city in name only,
and geographical location.
Amid the rubble of destruction, the flags of the victors --
men who had taken up arms in self-defense with a common aim to destroy that which menaced
them all.
Around them,
a defeated nation.
For their armies had met in the very middle of Germany.
Until such time as Germany could reshape her own destiny,
she would be divided into separate zones of occupation
each controlled by an Allied power:
American, British, French, Russian.
Economically she would be treated as a whole.
This, the victors had agreed
when they had met to decide the future of Germany.
Even then
some had reservations about mutual trust.
But a world war just over,
they had to trust one another
or else begin another war.
For Berlin
it was to be each power with its sector.
But a city open to all the powers
until Berlin
could again assume her role as the capital of a new German state.
Berlin lay a hundred miles deep in the Soviet occupation zone
but was not part of it.
Access to the city for the other powers
was agreed over certain roads,
railways,
and three air corridors.
Makeshift perhaps
but then it was never meant to be permanent.
In Berlin they set up the headquarters of an Allied Kommandatura
where day-by-day, officers of the four occupying powers would administer Berlin
by cooperation,
by joint agreement
as to what was to be done
and how.
And frankly
what was to be done meant starting again from scratch.
Yet amid the ruins and the deprivation
slowly a start was made.
A start not only upon the physical reconstruction but also the political
rebirth of the city.
It would appear
that the Soviets had agreed to joint occupation
only because they believed that in the first free elections Berlin would vote
Communist.
So it was with confidence that they watched the democratic processes of free
ballot.
But although Communist support in Berlin was far from negligible, for them the results
came as a shock.
Instead of a landslide for the extreme left,
there came instead of victory for the Social Democrats and other non-Communists.
But when in June 1947
the town assembly elected Ernst Reuter for mayor,
this proved to be a victory
without fruit.
For in the Allied Kommandatura, the frustrated Soviets vetoed his election.
It was a step
ominous
and foreboding.
Until that moment, the city had been divided in name only.
But from then on the Russians made the divisions more clear cut.
They set up a Communist system in their own sector
and established decided barriers between it and those of their recent allies.
These were the years in which the expression "Iron Curtain" became a reality.
Along a line from the Baltic to the Balkans
a clampdown.
In place of the comradeship of victory,
barbed wire,
suspicion
and distrust.
Years of disillusionment.
Meanwhile over the frontier paths,
there flowed a steady stream of refugees east to west.
Soon it became clear
that most were moving westwards
because they could not tolerate life in the East.
Again an ominous sign.
In the eastern sector of Berlin, Communist
power was fully established.
Party buses, party youth,
party rallies
permeated with all the hysteria previously associated with the Nazis.
By organizing special police and
paramilitary units,
the Soviets were illegally rearming
East Germany.
In the world councils of the United Nations, the war weary were
endeavoring to establish a lasting peace.
But these were the days of Stalinist expansion
and so by repeated refusal to cooperate, except on their own terms,
the Soviet delegates sabotaged any progress towards real stability.
On the 23rd of June 1948, West Berlin introduced
monetary reform, without which economic recovery would have been impossible.
New notes for old.
The currency was revalued.
For the Russians,
their disagreement gave them
excuse for action.
West Berlin they could not touch.
But they could, and did interfere with the lifelines
on which West Berlin depended. The roads,
the railways,
the canals.
These were West Berlin's vital arteries.
So stop the trains.
Close the roads.
Bar the canals and cut the power.
West Berlin was a hundred miles deep in the Soviet zone of Germany.
This was to be the way
to force the Western Allies to quit Berlin.
Thus, two million people were isolated.
To be faced with the prospect of hunger, cold,
unemployment,
and misery.
No way in.
No way out.
The only element still open
the air above.
It started as a trickle
as a temporary measure.
Plane after plane.
Destination:
the airfields of West Berlin.
The vital necessities: food, raw materials, even coal brought in by air
until the United States, Great Britain and France were embarked upon the
biggest air transport operation history has ever seen.
Round the clock, plane after plane.
Even flying boats to set down on West Berlin's lakes.
In the beleaguered city, power shortage enforced skeleton transport services.
Food shortage necessitated careful distribution and queues.
But rather short measure
than surrender.
As each night fell, the roar of aero engines continued.
Dependent for the most part on power from the eastern sector,
West Berlin was plunged each night into a blackout.
But while West Berliners felt their way through the gloom, still the airlift
continued through the hours of darkness.
When West Berliners rose each dawn
it was again to the roar of planes.
But because of those planes there was bread in the shops
and this was to be the pattern for many a hard month ahead.
It was to be expected that the Soviets would not take the airlift without some
reaction.
Across the Eastern boundary,
the Communists staged demonstrations against what they called
this Western interference with Berlin affairs.
These in turn led to riots that forced the non-Communist counselors to abandon the
Berlin town hall, which lay in the eastern sector.
But in the western sectors unity against the blockade was overwhelming,
symbolized by the leadership of Ernst Reuter.
[Reuter speaking to crowd in German]
Any joint administration of Berlin as a whole
had already ceased to exist.
A fact emphasized by the abandonment by the Russians of the Allied Kommandatura.
City government for greater Berlin was impossible
since the Western counselors had been driven from the east.
So Reuter
and the non-Communists moved into new quarters in the west
and at their meetings
empty chairs stood witness to the fact that the
East Berliners were denied the right to choose their representatives
freely.
For the West, the Berlin blockade came as the last straw.
Soviet behavior had demonstrated
that no one was safe.
After much negotiation,
twelve nations came together to form an alliance for collective defense.
Its name --
the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
Or, as it came to be known, NATO.
Together in Washington in April 1949,
they put the seal on their union.
They were resolved, as they put it,
to unite their efforts for collective defense and the preservation of peace
and security.
It was to be the end of leaning over backwards in the face of consistent
Soviet expansion.
Meanwhile for West Berlin,
it had been a tough winter.
On the air fields, fog, mist
and freezing cold.
Yet in spite of the conditions the airlift had carried on.
In spite of the conditions and the losses.
By means of the airlift
West Berlin had been kept alive,
but only at a cost.
All the sufferings of war
in the midst of peace
but there could be no turning back now.
If the Russians thought that the city could not be supplied indefinitely by air,
they were going to be proved very wrong.
For the airlift,
all possible reinforcement. More planes,
improved runways,
greater facilities.
And so what had begun as
makeshift became routine.
Food and supplies
month in, month out.
Soon it became clear that the West had not only won a victory against logistics
but also a model victory,
which drew the admiration of the world.
Thanks to the crews of the airlift.
Victory through determination
to defend the right.
Meanwhile a series of signatures on a piece of paper
had slowly but surely turned into practical steps towards military
cooperation
and collective rearmament within NATO.
Indeed the growth of unity in the West was such that the Russians, though still
breathing threats, realized
that their pressure was inducing the very opposite of that disunity on which they
counted.
And so for the free world
an historic night,
the night when on the autobahn leading to West Berlin
the barriers were pushed aside for the first time in nine months.
As the trucks and cars streamed forward,
so the railway destination boards read once again:
this train for Berlin.
But if the Russians believed
that the lifting of the blockade would cause the West to lower its guard,
they were mistaken.
NATO had been born
and until the East displayed a vastly different spirit
NATO was to stay.
No stopping now.
As yet forces were still weak
but as soon as possible they must be built up into a
strong defensive shield.
And what now Berlin?
Mayor Reuter and the Berliners
having won with western help the battle of the blockade
now begin the process of placing West Berlin onto a basis of economic
prosperity.
A city still an island,
linked with the world only by the arteries whose continued existence had been so
hardly won.
But now through them,
West Berlin was to draw strength
to make itself no longer just a
fragment of the city
but a unity within itself.
Yet still across Berlin as a whole
there was much traffic over the borders.
On the overhead and underground railways Berliners came and went.
True, the sector boundaries still loomed up,
but they did not prevent passage across the city
though it was passage under difficulties.
At the eastern sector border,
the trams, though continuing on, nonetheless were forced to change both
drivers and conductors.
While at this border too, anyone passing
had first to change his money.
For the East would not accept Western marks and vice versa.
But at the at the Potsdamer Platz, on the very border itself,
watched by the police on both sides, still a steady movement both ways.
Why not --
when all were Berliners.
But there were many passing but one way,
a steady stream of refugees to the West.
A steady stream unceasing since the end of World War II
but growing day by day as life became more intolerable
under a Communist regime.
The island of West Berlin
had become the staging point for the free road to the West.
To all but the most prejudiced it was obvious that all was far from perfect beyond
the Potsdamer Platz.
And on the 17th of June 1953 came proof.
On that day a protest march of East Berlin workers
turned into a general rebellion against the Communist regime.
For some hours that regime was helpless
against the disorder, until in desperation,
they called in the Red Army.
And so
because stones and courage against tanks are not enough,
the revolt died.
After the June uprising, the movement of refugees could no longer be termed a
stream.
It had become
a flood.
Throughout the western sectors of Berlin, the humming factories were evidence of their
rising prosperity.
Soon indeed West Berlin was to become again most the powerful production center
in all Germany.
But with theconfidence
there had been sorrow.
Before the bier of Mayor Reuter,
crowds passed to pay homage to the man who helped save their city.
Ernst Reuter was dead,
but his work was already showing great results.
Meanwhile,
in these years of uneasy truce,
the Soviet Union has systematically turned her zone into a purely
Communist regime.
And blocked every attempt to treat Germany as a whole.
The three Western powers had no alternative but to move forward with the
economic unification of their zones;
this was followed by political unification;
independence was not long in coming.
And there was born a new sovereign state:
the Federal Republic of Germany.
The status of Berlin, however, was not changed.
It remained the responsibility of the four occupying powers
and the garrisons stayed.
The guarantee of security for Western Germany depended on the overall strength
of the Atlantic Alliance.
Chancellor Adenauer and the federal parliament agreed
that the new republic should join NATO,
so bringing the organization's strength up to fifteen nations.
And by now,
strength was no misnomer.
Although the crisis was far from over,
NATO's power was such as to make any aggressor think carefully.
Now the West could negotiate from a position of strength and confidence.
At the Geneva Summit, the Soviets paid lip service to the principle of German
reunification,
but blocked any practical progress.
In those negotiations,
all the trying could not break down the Iron Curtain.
But for West Berlin, it was still go ahead.
To the traveler flying in,
the city displayed a brave new face.
First, on arrival
he would see the memorial to the airlift,
a sign that West Berlin remembers those who won its survival.
After that, a new skyline risen from the rubble.
If West Berliners had, as the Communists alleged,
little hope for the future,
it was not apparent in the face of their steadily changing city.
In West Berlin, a new look.
In East Berlin...
From beyond the Potsdamer Platz still thousands arriving,
still a flood to airlift off the island to find new homes in the West.
In the face of continued Soviet obstruction, the fifteen NATO nations
sought to clear the Soviets' minds as to how the Alliance stood
on the thorny question of Berlin.
Already in 1954,
the three powers responsible for Berlin
had made it clear beyond doubt that any attack against Berlin from any quarter
would be treated as an attack on their forces and on themselves.
The other members of NATO immediately associated themselves
with this declaration:
All proposals made by the Soviets toward solving the question of the
reunification of Germany
implied their refusal to acknowledge the principle of self-determination
by means of free elections to which the West was and is firmly committed.
Until such time as the Soviets change their minds,
the NATO nations will stand firm, in face of all Soviet pressure
and honor their pledge to maintain the freedom of West Berlin and its people.
A pledge often repeated at NATO ministerial meetings.
So,
until there was a change of front on the part of the East,
it would seem that Germany and Berlin would remain divided.
But evidence that the status quo did not suit everybody in the East
was the continued flood of refugees passing through to West Berlin.
In November 1958,
Soviet pressure comes on again.
Mr. Khrushchev begins to create his own crisis
by threatening to sign a separate peace treaty with the East Germans.
Paris
May 1960.
Mr. Khrushchev
uses the U2 incident to break up the summit conference,
which was meant to bring the Berlin and German questions nearer to a solution.
He drops his threat to take immediate action
but does not change his tune.
Berlin he alleges
is the capital of the sovereign East Germany
and the Allies must be made to quit Berlin.
And in rearmed Communist Germany, the force is there:
men and armor.
June the 4th, 1961
Khrushchev to President Kennedy
Khrushchev repeats his threat to sign a separate peace treaty with East Germany,
which he claims -- wrongly --
will end all Western rights in Berlin.
And so on.
Move after move
until ...
On the 13th of August 1961, a wall of East German police
stands at the Brandenburg Gate.
All communication between the eastern sector and those of the west has been
cut as though by a knife.
Before it, West Berliners stand stunned.
But soon they give voice to their indignation.
[Crowd chanting in German in face of police]
But to all objections, all approaches,
the only answer --
jets of water from Eastern armored trucks.
Soviet attacks on the rights of the Western powers in Berlin
showed that the wall was meant to be a step towards control of the whole city,
towards forcing out the Western powers.
As the last escape routes were cut, one after the other,
final scrambles
so as not to be left behind in the prison.
And this was an exodus, not confined merely to the civilians.
Even among the East German police guarding and maintaining the new barrier,
there were some who decided that they too had reached the end of their tether.
And there was nothing left for it, but to cut and run.
[West German mayor Willy Brandt speaking in German to crowd]
At protest meetings held in the western sectors, the mayor and people
of West Berlin called for help and support from the three Western powers.
[West German mayor Willy Brandt speaking in German to crowd]
And they did not call in vain.
Along the autobahn leading to the city came reinforcements from the three Western
garrisons
stationed in Berlin.
In all, these garrisons
number only 12,000 men,
a small force compared to the massive weight of the
20 Soviet divisions which surround the city. A force so small
that it gives the lie to Soviet charges that Berlin is an
aggressive Western base.
But these reinforcements were the symbols
of Western determination.
They demonstrated to the Soviet Union
that any aggression threatening the life of West Berlin
could bring into play all the defensive power of the West.
A firm stand:
so far and no further.
Brick by brick, until no contact, but a friendly wave.
So that when Chancellor Adenauer visited the crisis area,
he was met not only by radio truck insults
but literally by a wall.
But a wall can never create a permanent prison for the human spirit.
Its strength is measured only by the fears of those who build it.
By night,
by tunnels,
somehow a few still managed to make their escape.
Though others failed and fell, riddled with East German bullets.
For the East, the wall is evidence
of how they would like to treat the whole of Berlin,
of their kind of settlement of the Berlin problem.
So that this today is the Potsdamer Platz,
where freedom, like the trams,
comes to the end of the line.
But for the West, such settlements are unacceptable.
Ever since the Atlantic Alliance was created
it has striven to resolve all problems by peaceful negotiation,
including the reunification of Germany
and Berlin in freedom.
But it is negotiation from the strength necessary to withstand the threat of
force
and in NATO's determination to resist aggression
lies the hope for peace and freedom
of millions
all over the world.