UNDERGRADUATE PAGE
Whose Peace?
By W. H. STEVENSON (Edinburgh University) IHAVE never been so pleased to see Martin Luther in all my life. We were walking round the ruined streets of Berlin, the four of us, on the second day of the Youth Festival, and already we were heartily sick of the "Peace! " posters, the blatant slogans on the walls and the pictures of Stalin. The un- civilising atmosphere of the place was already manifesting itself in me as a desire to pencil in spectacles on Stalin and add rude words to the slogans, or to put up a slogan of my own inven- tion—a reaction in itself testifying to the nagging penetration , of the propaganda. Three of the four of us were British, using the Festival as an opportunity to go bthind the Iron Curtain for a while, with the aim of talking to as many ordinary people as possible, in an attempt to form some sort of objective picture , of East Germany. We 'were not at all Communist, but from the enthusiasm of the crowds of youth, and the genuine interest of our guides and interpreters in their jobs, we were willing to accept that the new order was popular. However, we were beginning to be undeceived. The girl we were talking to was giving us the other side of the picture. She was the first of itiany who, opening cautiously, spoke out when we had indicated that we were not tied to the party-line. So we began to hear the tale. On the one hand the official books and pamphlets told proudly of the large grants given to students of working-class origin, the total elimination of unemployment and the great work done by the official youth movement, the F.D.J. But this office-girl and, in later days, the ex-P.O.W. workmen, the small officials and the students told us of the other side—the many students whose grants have failed because they were not good party-followers, the economic risks attached to non- membership of F.D.J., the unemployed who are given a choice of the People's Police or the uranium mines, having become unemployed because of the numbers of experts who have fled to the West. The Communists are proud of their law to protect peace ; we discovered that it gave the Government powers to demand any penalty, up to death, against the person accused of that very comprehensive crime, being an " enemy of peace."
We were just beginning to learn the first of these things as we walked along the street now called Liebknecht, when we met 'Martin Luther. He seems not to--have changed. He stands, as ' squarely as ever, before the Church of St. Mary, with his book "open on his left arm and a stern forefinger pointing into it._ The streets were covered with peace slogans, political invective," red flags and portraits of Communist leaders, surrounded by red flags, making a deliberately emotional appeal in contrast with the endless ruins—" the war-shattered city rejoices in the cause of peace "—but all the devils on the roof-tops made no I difference to Martin. He remained firmly planted on the ground ' he took up four hundred years ago. It is still firm. ' This 'could be mere fantasy, or a pathetic picture of a forlorn and voiceless statue, outdated and overwhelmed by the more modern farces of an advancing age. But it is not. The spirit * that filled Luther still invigorates his Church, and that his statue stifl stands on a main street is the least sign of continued vitality. Indeed, the Clch is- the most hopeful sign in East Germany today. It, is the only body which unhesitatingly says " No " to Communist demands where it thinks necessary, and continues to preach its own alternative. " Peace is our right," " We must unite in the fight for Peace! " shout the hoardings ; we Walked into the doorway-of the Humboldt University and found a large notice put up by the Christian student groups, ProtestAnt and Catholic: "Jesus Christ—our Peace." And that led us into the strangely familiar company of those young Christians, probably the most valuable experience of our stay in Berlin. We found a wide and immediate contrast. Instead of that long period of cautious approach, they were_ open with us from the first. We sat, sometimes as many as a hundred together, from various parts of East Germany and Europe, and they were quite unrestrained in their presentation of facts, examples and opinions, though they had no means of telling who was present. And though none of them was in a position without some anxiety, lest their jobs or their grants should wither away after enquiries by a member of a Socialist Unity Party executive, they were not downcast or in despair. At the end of a discussion someone proposed an international hymn. At a pastor's first suggestion, we all rose to sing " Now thank we all our God."
That picture contrasts in my mind with another. I remember only one other statue in East Berlin ; it is the huge war memorial to the Russian troops who were killed in " liberating Germany from the Fascist tyranny." It has a long approach, through an archway, leading down an avenue of trees and bushes towards two dipped Soviet flags in red stone and two kneeling soldiers. Beyond that is a long lawn, paved round, somewhat sunken below 'a flight of steps. Under it five thousand Russian soldiers are buried, and at the- end of it stands this great statue of a soldier. Round the sides of the garden are plaques showing pictures of Soviet troops in action, with quotations from Stalin, in Russian and German. There is no memorial to German dead anywhere.
On this occasion, as wreaths were laid at the foot of 'this memorial, two or three hundred boys and girls, members of the F.D.J., were lined along the sides of the avenue and the garden. I looked at some of their silent, expressionless faces, and wondered what young bitterness was hidden there. Many, if not all, must have suffered in some way when the war at last came into their country ; now they were being taught to look on their fathers and relatives as representatives of Nazi tyranny and to do honour to the Soviet Army as the arm of liberation and peace. But no .one forgets the Soviet behaviour of 1945, though no one talks of it long. Nevertheless, this false rever- ence has a grip on the nation. So these children stand in their line's and keep their thoughts to themselves in a place where they may smoulder awhile. They have seen the patent insin- cerity of many of -their teachers and can learn from it.
Though we heard more and more about the unpopularity of the regime, we could not help but realise more and more the strength of its hold. On Sunday, August 12th,.the F.D.J. marched across the main square, a hundred deep, for seven hours. All 'the underground stations in the city centre were closed for two days ; as we went to church at 10 o'clock that morning we found that we had to duck under ropes and-dodge through the marching ranks on several different streets to reach the middle of the town.
The trumpets came faintly through the walls of the Marienkirche, sounding rather unreal and not very challenging. The organ and the strong voice of the pastor reading the lesson were much more solid and full-bodied, though everyone knew of the endless stream of youth pouring in a dehumanised mass through the square less than 'a hundred yards away. The new German democracy was demonstrating for peace. Mean- while, only a little apart, Luther stood with _his open book, pointing, surely, at only one place—his own translation of the 22nd verse of the 48th chapter of Isaiah, which might well be remembered on both sides of the Iron Curtain: ", But the godless. saith the Lord, have no peace."
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