14 August 1961
Around 15,000 armed personnel from the People’s Police, border police and combat troops are deployed at the sector border in the morning; in the background, some 7,000 soldiers from the National People’s Army are in readiness as a second line of security and large units from the Soviet army as a third line. How will people, particularly the workers in the factories, react on the first working day after the closure? Will there be a rebellion? Will there be a repeat of 17 June 1953?
Such fears soon dissipate: at People’s Police headquarters, reports soon come in that an orderly start to work has been made in the factories and large construction sites; there are no "mob gatherings", nor is there any "conspicuous absence", as it is called. The State Security reports: "Negative discussions are not taking on any excessive proportions." There is approval expressed in some quarters from schadenfreude because the border-crossings have been stopped; otherwise, rage, helplessness and resignation prevail. Whenever there is a move to protest in factories or at the sector border during the day, it is nipped in the bud by the Party and the "armed organs". From August to December 1961, there is the biggest wave of arrests in the GDR since 17 June 1953.
In the morning, the SED Politburo comes together for an extraordinary meeting and decides on the next steps in the sealing-off operation. Because of the "demonstrations and continual provocations" at the Brandenburg Gate, the border crossing there is to be "temporarily" closed to West Berliners. At 2 p.m., the chief of the East Berlin People’s Police gives the order to this effect.
The interior minister is also ordered to make the barriers at the former border crossings to West Berlin, which up to now have been provisionally erected using barbed wire, "solid" – the decision to erect the first sections of a wall is thus taken.
And although the "resolution of the Council of Ministers" of 12.8.1961 had stated that GDR citizens were allowed to cross the border to West Berlin only "with special permission" – and thus nurtured the hope that such visas would be issued - the people of the GDR are now put under indefinite arrest: "The issuing of passes to citizens of the GDR (democratic Berlin) for visits to West Berlin is to be stopped until further notice", the SED leadership decides.
In protest against the arbitrary measures introduced in the East, work and traffic in West Berlin come to a standstill from 2 p.m. to 2.15 p.m. at the initiative of the German Confederation of Trade Unions (DGB).
In East Berlin and the GDR, the factories remain fairly calm; according to a report by the Free German Trade Union Federation (FDGB), there are 36 walkouts altogether in the 3rd quarter of 1961.
In Bonn, Foreign Minister Heinrich von Brentano receives the ambassadors of the three Western Powers at 10 a.m.. They are waiting for decisions from their government headquarters. During the day, the foreign minister receives a telegram from Willy Brandt, calling on the West German government to take the initiative. The Berlin Senate, Brandt writes, expects and hopes "that the West German government shares his opinion that the Western Powers will insist on the revocation of this regulation, which is unacceptable to Berlin, and will not shy away from palpable measures against the initiators of these arbitrary actions." At an ordinary sitting of the Senate in the morning, the Ruling Mayor has been forced to realise what limited means are at the disposal of the Senate itself.
At a meeting with the Western city commanders, the Mayor of Berlin, Franz Amrehn, expresses his disappointment that no Western countermeasures were noticeable. Amrehn: "I wonder whether a higher-level operation at the right time in Berlin might not have prevented much that has happened. Perhaps yesterday was already the right moment for a personal visit by the commanders. Today, more would have to happen." General Watson, the American city commander, answers only: "Our governments are handling the case and we expect decisions."
In the evening, West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer opens the final phase of the Bundestag election campaign in Regensburg, launching sharp personal attacks on Willy Brandt; he alludes to the latter’s change of name in discriminatory fashion by calling him "Mr Brandt alias Frahm". Brandt, in his turn, had attacked Adenauer in his campaign speech in Nuremberg on 12 August, accusing the CDU government of "amounting to nothing but smugness and egoism and taking refuge in mental laziness and stupidity".
In Washington, President Kennedy and his administration, including the State Department and the Pentagon, are busying themselves with the events in Berlin. Kennedy’s national security adviser, McGeorge Bundy, states soberly that this "border-closure episode" had to happen sooner or later. Now more than ever, he advises Kennedy to take a clear initiative – as quickly as possible, i.e. within a week or ten days - in starting negotiations with the Soviet Union. For McGeorge Bundy’s assistant Walt Rostow, the border closure calls for protest, but does not justify either military retaliation or the breaking-off of trade relations. The thoughts of the American president himself revolve around the question of how the sealing-off can be best exploited for propaganda against the East. He decides to undertake no countermeasures, because he sees no alternative – except war.
In Paris, the Allied supreme commander, General Lauris Norstad, has called a special meeting of the NATO council. Gebhard von Walter, then permanent representative of West Germany at NATO, remembers: "No decision was taken. The members of the NATO council reacted in a fairly reserved way and not really in a manner to inspire confidence. But Norstad reserved the right to make suggestions to President Kennedy. We met again on Wednesday, and Norstad told us briefly that President Kennedy had given him instructions to refrain from any activity. It was doubtless – as was obvious from Norstad’s words – a great disappointment for him. If a wall were built, he had proposed driving up to the it in armoured vehicles, but remaining on western territory, and to use demolition hooks thrown over the wall to tear it down." (Gebhard von Walter in: Schwarz 1985, p. 38)
In a television interview, the French foreign minister, Couve de Murville, says: "What the East German authorities – that is, in reality the Soviet Union – have decided with regard to the connections between East and West Berlin is certainly very serious."
On Sunday, the British Foreign Office in London refused to make any comment and did not want to confirm that the East German action was a serious violation of existing Allied agreements. But today, a Foreign Office spokesman describes the obstruction of traffic between West and East Berlin as illegal. He says it goes against the Four Power status of the city. The spokesman particularly emphasises that the heavy flow of refugees that preceded the closure of the crossings in Berlin was a result solely of the failure of the communist system and was not due to Western propaganda. He says that Foreign Secretary Lord Home and Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, who are both on holiday, do not intend to return to London and that they are in constant telephone contact with London headquarters.
In an open letter, the author Günter Grass calls on the chairwoman of the GDR Writers’ Association, Anna Seghers, to raise her voice and speak out "against the tanks, against the same barbed wire, produced again and again in Germany, that once gave the concentration camps barbed-wire security."
Press comments in the West:
Die Welt: "It was early on Sunday morning. A West German radio station broadcast the first reports on the new closing-off measures introduced by the Ulbricht regime in the heart of Berlin; announced that the only remaining escape route from the ‘German Workers’ and Peasants’ State’, which tens of thousands had used in the past few weeks, had been blocked off by armed force. We were still sitting, numbed and shocked, in front of our loudspeakers, when the announcer continued: ‘And now we have our popular programme: ‘Lively Tunes on the Weekend’. Modern hits and older ones followed, foxtrot, Charleston and cha-cha-cha. (…) For just one day, one tiny day, we would have liked a respite from light music in view of the German tragedy now taking place in Berlin."
In the "Westdeutsches Tagesblatt", Stefan Sturm comments: "Yesterday evening, Berlin was like a powder keg. There were already incidents that could grow into bloody conflicts. In this situation, cool level-headedness is necessary. (…) The crisis shows once more how necessary it is to finally launch a dialogue between East and West so that there can be binding agreements between the large powers. One spark could blow up the powder keg that is Berlin. All parties involved must avoid this danger whatever happens. These developments could end in atomic chaos. Every means should be seen as justified to avoid a ‘hot’ war."
The "Rheinische Post" reports that the "atmosphere [had been] full of great tension" on Sunday; "a huge eruption was to be feared" at any moment. It then goes on: "We have difficult weeks before us, difficult and dangerous weeks. Not because war has become inevitable after Ulbricht’s act. There is also a different danger: the danger of gradual surrender, the ‘silent loss of freedom", as Kennedy recently described it. This much is certain: if the communist side gains the impression that breaking international agreements and treaties is accepted without serious resistance, it will turn the screw of blackmail and threats even more tightly tomorrow."
In the "Stuttgarter Zeitung", Robert Haerdter comments: "In sealing off East Berlin, they have done something which no one could stop them doing, because they can do as they please on their territory, which is at the mercy of their police power. Which weapon would be raised to revoke this act, which soldier would be prepared to die for the human right of our compatriots over there to flee? The right to freedom of movement (…) has over the years become such a wafer-thin piece of paper that high-level politics can no longer insist upon it. But the sealing off of the western sectors of the city from the eastern ones is a flagrant breach of law, for it violates the agreements that have been made between the Four Powers and that cannot be cancelled even by the Soviet Union itself, let alone by people who have no rights at all in this matter."
"Hannoversche Presse": "Well, however threatening the signs may be at the moment and however serious the days and hours that we are experiencing, the worst thing, that is, a new war, is probably a baseless fear. (…) The paramount question is about the West’s response. (…) It is impossible for the West to accept this immense snub, which is also a test of how serious its will to resistance against any type of force is. In this case, the utmost severity is imperative. The tension while waiting for this response is almost unbearable."
GDR press:
The commentator in "Neues Deutschland" hails the "clear situation": "Since dawn on Sunday, there is order and a clear situation on the borders of the German Democratic Republic, especially on the border to the western sectors of Berlin. (…) Children are now protected from child-stealers; families are protected from the blackmailing snoopers of the human trafficking headquarters; businesses are protected from the head-hunters; people are protected from the monsters, order from the violators of order, the industrious from the indolent and speculators, the calm and security of our citizens from the Cold War exponents."
Under the headline "Defiance of the Sable-Rattlers", the "Tribüne" comments: "This is a blow that has found its mark. The fist of the workers’ and peasants’ power smashed right into the face of the mad militaristic monster. The howling that has echoed through the administrative offices of Bonn and Schöneberg, through the Adenauer press and the ether of the West Zone is music for workers’ ears. Deep satisfaction fills us unionists of the GDR at the decision of our government, which puts a bolt on the West Berlin rat hole of the Cold War."
Further headlines: "Das Volk" (Erfurt): "The Rat’s Nest Is Blocked – All classes of people unanimously agree with the government measures" – "Freies Wort" (Suhl): "The Trees of the Militarists Will Not Grow into the Sky – agreement in all classes of people in the district of Suhl to our government’s measures" – "Volksstimme" (Karl-Marx-Stadt): "Blows against the Mortal Enemies of Our People" – "Sächsische Zeitung" (Dresden) : " A Victory for Peace."
