3 August 1961
In the period from 3.8.1961, 8 a.m., to 4.8.1961, 8 a.m., 1,100 refugees are registered in the Marienfelde refugee centre in Berlin.
The three Western city commanders protest to the Soviet city commander about the measures taken by the East Berlin City Council to make it more difficult for East Berliners and GDR citizens ("cross-border commuters"; German: "Grenzgänger") with jobs in West Berlin to get to their workplaces. They say the measures violate the right to full freedom of movement in Berlin, contradict agreements to this effect and are to be considered as "absolutely reprehensible" in human terms.
The Soviet Union sends the West German government a memorandum on the issue of a peace treaty with Germany and the normalisation of the situation in West Berlin. The document is a response to the memorandum of the West German government from 12 July 1961. The memorandum says that, if the West German government refuses to take part in a peace treaty by the end of 1961, it will lose what may be the last chance to take a decisive step towards re-establishing German unity.
In Moscow, a three-day summit of the Warsaw Pact states begins (3 to 5 August 1961). In the official communiqué, the participants declare their determination to conclude a peace treaty either with both German states or just with the GDR.
However, on two of the three days, the conference focuses on Albania and the policies of the Albanian Party leader Enver Hoxha, who has taken an increasingly critical stance towards the Soviet Union. According to the Albanians, but also the Chinese, the Soviet Union is underestimating the dangers of imperialism and is too conciliatory, a criticism that is also levelled at Khrushchev personally. Recent research that was able to draw on the Soviet minutes of the meeting has come to the conclusion that the growing Soviet-Chinese rivalry overshadowed the conference (Bonwetsch/Filitow 2000).
Decisions taken by the SED Politburo in the following days (see 7 August 1961) suggest that a resolution on closing the border in Berlin was possibly taken in Moscow as well. The conference documents that have been accessible so far, however, do not provide any information on this; a formal resolution has not yet been found. Handwritten notes by Walter Ulbricht about comments made by Nikita Khrushchev (possibly in a one-to-one conversation) on 3 August, which have recently been made available for viewing in the federal archives, reveal that Khrushchev talked generally about "administrative measures" and "closing the border".
The question of who pressurised whom is still a matter of dispute among researchers and remains unresolved. However, Ulbricht’s interpreter, Werner Eberlein, has reported that there was no talk in Moscow of building a wall.
