Meeting between CPSU leader Leonid Brezhnev and SED General Secretary Erich Honecker in the Crimea. Brezhnev voices surprise that the GDR has recently carried out joint economic projects with Western companies rather than with the Soviet Union.
"Could it be," he asks Honecker, "that some of your comrades involved with economic matters underestimate the danger of too close relations with the West and the resulting increase in foreign debt?" He says that he has "material" to this effect.
Honecker receives praise for the measures taken to gain more control over Western journalists in the GDR and to contain the D-mark as the "second currency" in the GDR; Brezhnev says, however, that more measures to limit the influence of West Germany are necessary. Honecker promises that further steps will follow: "Rest assured that the GDR will always take a firm stance."less
