I WAS INTERESTED to read in an article by Mr.
Alexander Werth on East Germany that the ten- dency now is for East Germans to stay where they are and that 'only 2,000 people a week now leave the Ease for the West.' Two thousand a week still seems quite a lot—it adds up to more than 100,000 a year—but certainly represents a reduction on the 3,000 refugees a week who were coming into West Berlin alone when I was last there. In fact, the monthly figures for refugees from East to West Germany are as follows : October, 1956: 25,000. November : 20,000. December : 14,000. January, 1957: 19,000. February : 16,000. This makes a weekly total of never much less than 3,500 and sometimes a good deal more. Evidently Mr. Werth's mathematics were at fault. I also find a little strange his de- scription of recent unrest in East Germany and the methods used in dealing with it : 'a mixture of threats, concessions and some—but not many—re- prisals.' Would Professor Harich and his associ- ates, who have just been sentenced to long terms of imprisonment, agree with this? But then Pro- fessor Harich is not mentioned in the course of Mr. Werth's article.
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