I repeat that the activities of the organizations which you mention have no concern with spying, diversionism, or terror. These organizations would not be necessary and would cease to exist if basic human rights, such as freedom of speech, freedom of movement, and freedom from arbitrary arrest existed in the Soviet zone and Eastern Berlin. Nor can their activities justify the measures taken since last May, at the instigation of the Soviet authorities, whereby the principal channels of communication between East and West Germany have been obstructed or curtailed. I take the opportunity of reminding you that I have not received a reply to Mr. McCloy's letter of June 301 in which your attention was called to this serious matter. I cannot but conclude that the purpose of your letter was to attempt, by its many unfounded allegations, to provide a belated justification of these measures which hinder the reunification of Germany and which, as you are no doubt aware, have aroused widespread and fully justified indignation throughout Germany.

23. BERLIN UPRISING: Message From the Allied Commandants in Berlin to the Representative of the Soviet Control Commission, June 18, 1953 2

As Commandants of the French, British and U.S. sectors of Berlin and in the name of the Allied High Commission we desire to express our grave concern over events which have taken place in Berlin in the past few days.

We condemn the irresponsible recourse to military force which had as its result the killing or serious wounding of a considerable number of citizens of Berlin including some from our own sectors.

We protest the arbitrary measures taken by the Soviet authorities which have resulted in the interruption of traffic between the sectors and free circulation throughout Berlin.

We formally deny that Willi Coettling, executed after a travesty of justice, was an agent provocateur under the orders of the intelligence service of a foreign power. His condemnation to death and his execution on an empty pretext appear to us as acts of brutality which will shock the conscience of the world.

As the highest Soviet authority in the Soviet sector of Berlin you share with us the responsibility of guaranteeing the well-being and the freedom of the people of Berlin. We therefore demand in the interest of Berlin as a whole that the harsh restrictions imposed on the population be lifted immediately and that free circulation within Berlin be reestablished.

1 Department of State Bulletin, Sept. 1, 1952, p. 319.

2 Ibid., June 29, 1953, pp. 897-898.

24. BERLIN UPRISING: Letter From the Allied Commandants in Berlin to the Soviet Military Commander in Berlin,' June 24, 1953 2

We, the French, British and American Commandants, have received your letter of June 203 and hasten to reject your allegations that the disturbances of June 17 were the result of action by groups sent from Western sectors of Berlin. The statement in the inclosure to your letter that an American called Heaver who was wearing a uniform with two stars, which are the insignia of a major general, was seen giving the instructions to organize the disorders is, we are sure you will agree, Major General Dibrova, unworthy of serious consideration and must be held to discredit the rest of the informant's testimony. You and the world are well aware of the true causes of the disorders which have recently occurred in East Berlin, and it is therefore unnecessary for us to tell you that the three powers in West Berlin had no responsibility whatever for instigating them.

We must therefore continue to demand that the remaining restrictions imposed on the Berlin population be lifted and that the steps which you have already taken to reestablish circulation within Berlin be carried to their logical conclusions, free and unfettered movement between all sectors.

We on our side shall continue as always to fulfill our responsibility for the maintenance of law and order in our sectors, and we are ready to do our part in reestablishing normal conditions of life throughout the whole city.

25. BERLIN UPRISING: Statement by the Secretary of State at a Press Conference, June 30, 1953 *

I have long believed and preached that the Soviet was overextended having under its control some 600 million non-Russians representing what had been 15 or more independent nations. I have been confident that these people could not be moulded into the Soviet Communist pattern, particularly if the free peoples kept alive the hope of the captives and showed them that they were not forgotten.

There has now developed extensive unrest within the satellite countries of Europe. It demonstrates that the people do retain their love of God and love of country and their sense of personal dignity. They want to run their own affairs and not be run from Moscow.

The unquenchable spirit of the peoples was dramatized in East Berlin, where unarmed youths tore up paving stones from the streets to hurl in defiance at tanks. Such a spirit can never be repressed, and this love of freedom is more and more manifesting itself through the captive peoples.

The cry everywhere is for "free elections." The people want to be governed by those whom they select as responsive to their needs and their desires, rather than to be ruled by those who take their orders from aliens and who give their orders with a view to achieving their own ambitions without regard to the welfare of the people concerned. In my book War or Peace, written over 3 years ago, I said: "... the Communist structure is over-extended, over-rigid and ill-founded. It could be shaken if the difficulties that were latent were activated.” 1 I went on to point out that this does not mean an armed revolt which would precipitate a massacre, but that short of this the people could demonstrate an independence such that the Soviet Communist leaders would come to recognize the futility of trying to hold captive so many peoples who, by their faith and their patriotism, can never really be consolidated into a Soviet Communist world.

The developments of recent weeks show the correctness of that diagnosis.

26. UPRISING IN EAST GERMANY: Letter From the President of the United States to the Chancellor of the German Federal Republic, July 23, 1953 2

MY DEAR MR. CHANCELLOR: During the development of the conversations between the U.S. Secretary of State and the Foreiga Ministers of Great Britain and France, it occurred to me that it might be helpful if I were to write you a letter in amplification of the thoughts so tightly compressed in the final communiqué.3

It seems to me that certain definite patterns are emerging from the situation in East Germany and the Eastern European satellite countries-patterns which will unquestionably have a profound effect upon the future, including the proposed meeting of the Foreign Ministers of the Four Powers.

I think, therefore, that it will be useful for me to share my thoughts with you in some detail at this time.

Great historical developments, such as the recent Berlin and East German anti-Communist demonstrations, rarely have single roots. Nevertheless, I am quite certain that future historians, in their analysis of the causes which will have brought about the disintegration of the Communist empire, will single out those brave East Germans who dared to rise against the cannons of tyranny with nothing but their bare hands and their stout hearts, as a root cause. I think also that those same historians will record your own extraordinary steadfastness in the cause of European peace and freedom over many, many years. In analyzing these recent developments, there appear to be five points of greatest significance.

First, this eruption against Communist oppression was spon

1 War or Peace (New York, 1950), p. 247.

2 Department of State Bulletin, Aug. 3, 1953, pp. 147-149.
Communiqué of July 14. 1953; supra, pp. 1463–1467.
See supra, docs. 23 and 24.

taneous. I know that I need not go into any elaborate denial with you of the fantastic explanation put out by Moscow that the uprising was caused by American provocateurs. No provocateur of any nationality can persuade human beings to stand up in front of rumbling tanks with sticks and stones. Such action comes from the heart and not from any foreign purse.

Second, this uprising was not just a momentary flash of desperation. The continuing news of disorders in Eastern Germany indicates a fundamental and lasting determination to be fully and finally free, despite long years of stern Sovietization.

Third, nowhere were the rioters "bourgeois reactionaries" or "capitalist warmongers." They were workers. Therefore, the martyrs who fell before Russian Communist guns were the very same workers in whose name the Kremlin has falsely and cynically built their empire of oppression, their farflung "workers' paradise." Fourth, the fact of the uprising, the conduct of the German Communist leaders during the event and their actions since the event, all indicate the complete political bankruptcy of the SED [Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands].2

Fifth, and to me of utmost significance, when the riots developed in the Russian sector of Berlin, the workers' chant was, "We want free elections." In this phrase, the people clearly and simply summed up their yearning for the alleviation of their grievances and sufferings. The combination of these five facts actually forms the background for that portion of the July 15 Foreign Ministers' communiqué dealing with German unification and free elections. And the communiqué itself, as you know, is actually the diplomatic confirmation of your own earlier statements, of my June 26 cable to you, and most important, of the resolution of the German Bundestag of June 10.5

For the past many months there have been endless arguments and debates on both sides of the Atlantic over the respective priorities of such words and phrases as "unification," "peace treaty," "free elections," "withdrawal of occupation troops," etc.

It has always seemed to me and these recent events, to me at least, clearly confirm the thought-that there can be no solution without free elections and the formation of a free all-German Government, leading to unification. From that point on can flow a logical, orderly sequence of events, culminating in an honorable peace treaty and the re-emergence of a new united German Republic, dedicated to the welfare of its own people, as a friendly and peaceful member of the European family of nations.

To this first step of free elections, the Government of the United

See the letter of June 20, 1953, from the Soviet Commandant in Berlin to the three Western Commandants; Department of State Bulletin, July 6, 1953, pp. 8-9. 'Socialist Unity Party of Germany (formed as a result of the forced amalgamation of the Communist Party and the Social Democratic Party in the Soviet Zone of Germany).

Should read "July 14"; supra, pp. 1463-1467.

'Should read "June 25"; Department of State Bulletin, July 6, 1953, p. 10. Documents on German Unity, vol. IV (Bad-Godesberg, 1953), p. 15.

States will continue to lend the full force of its political, diplomatic, and moral support.

There are sincere people in Germany, in the nations of Western Europe, and even in my own country, who have come to believe that free elections, and therefore the unification of Germany, contradict and possibly exclude the concept of the European Defense Community which has been ratified by both your Houses of Parliament and is now before your Constitutional Court. I do not and have never accepted this theory that the EDC and unification of Germany are mutually exclusive. Quite the contrary.

1

As the three Foreign Ministers stated at the conclusion of their recent meeting in Washington, since the European community corresponds to the lasting needs of its members and their people for peace, security, and welfare, it is looked upon as necessary in itself and not linked up with existing international tensions.

It has long been my conviction that the strengthening of the Federal Republic, through adoption of the EDC, the contractual agreements and further progress in the integration of Western Europe, can only enhance the prospects for the peaceful unification of Germany, by increasing the attractive power of this prosperous Western Germany vis-à-vis the Soviet Zone, an attractive power which has already been demonstrated by the steady stream of refugees in recent months, as well as the demonstrations which began on June 17. This increasing contrast between Western and Eastern Germany, the latter with its bankrupt regime and impoverished economy, will in the long run produce conditions which should make possible the liquidation of the present Communist dictatorship and of the Soviet occupation.

While a future all-German Government must obviously be free to choose the degree to which it wishes to enter into defensive and other arrangements compatible with the principles of the United Nations, I can hardly imagine that it would seek the path of complete and premature disarmament in the presence of other nations still heavily armed. I believe this is a matter worthy of serious attention. Those who in Germany believe they can suggest an easy, safe solution through defenseless neutralization should carefully ponder the true wisdom and safety of such a course.

Speaking for America, and I believe the rest of the free world shares this view, I can say that there has been enough bloodshed and enough misery and enough destruction in the past 50 years to deter any people or any Government of the West from any ideas of military aggression. But the peace we all so dearly seek cannot be maintained through weakness. EDC will be the simplest, most unequivocal, and most self-evident demonstration of strength for

peace.

No one can foretell what the unfolding months will bring, but it can certainly be said that the workers of Berlin's Soviet Sector and the workers of East Germany, with the workers of Czechoslovakia,

1 The Bundestag voted for ratification, Mar. 19, 1953; the Bundesrat took similar parliamentary action, Mar. 24, 1953.