Flight to the West D URING the month of March 48,724
people were registered in West Berlin as refugees from the Soviet Zone of Germany. The figure for the first three months of 1953 stands at 114,000. During the same period about 65,000 refugees were flown out of Berlin to destinations in West Germany. The high mark of new arrivals was reached at the beginning of March, when the daily -total rose to 3,000. During the last week the daily average has come down to about 1,300. At the same time air-transportation out of Berlin has risen to more than 2,000 refugees a day. At last the " backlog " which has taxed West Berlin up to and beyond human capacity is being worked down. The very worst seems to be over for the time being. The worst remains until the days when camps and emergency-shelters in West Berlin will be emptied except for the latest arrivals.. It will take considerable time for this stage to be reached. And the unknown factor in this calculation is the trend in the further flight from the Soviet Zone. Will it go on decreasing ? Will it increase again ? What, in other words, is the meaning of this mass-migration from the East to the West ? When the Soviets closed the zonal border this year, when they created_a heavily guarded No-man's-land along this border, which made escape across the Elbe extremely difficult, West Berlin became the principal place of refuge for all those who were eager to leave the Soviet Zone of Germany. A very temporary place of refuge indeed, for it is impossible for West Berlin. with its 240,000 unemployed out of a total population of 2,000,000, to absorb even a small influx of refugees, to say nothing of a mass invasion. Was it, then, possibly a wilful act on the part of the Soviets to create chaos in West Berlin by means of this stream of new-comers ? Or was it, on an even wider scale, an attempt at creating chaos in the Federal Republic, to which this stream must finally be directed ? These questions have been asked in Germany during the early stage of this new development. There was fear of a planned mass- evacuation of the Soviet Zone, which might be followed by the settlement of an entirely new population. drafted from the huge human reserves of the vast Soviet Empire. There was even talk of a future when Mongolians instead of Germans would live East of the Elbe.
.When the daily figures of refugees coming into Berlin were rising, Walter von Cube, Chief Commentator of Radio Munich, made his much criticised broadcast. He termed the German willingness to give asylum to the refugees from the East a policy of " suicidal humanity." He proposed to close the Iron Curtain hermetically on the West German side, to recognise the powers that be in the Soviet Zone, and to seek some kind of modus vivendi with the Soviet Zonal authorities. This commentary raised a storm of indignation throughout West Germany and particularly in West Berlin. Ernst Reuter, the mayor of Berlin, very justly replied from the same broad- casting station that suicide begins where humanity ends. It has been the universal attitude of West Germany during these last months that everything must be done to help the refugees, even if the stream were to mount further.
But, quite apart from this dispute about humanity and suicide, there are indications that an influx on the scale of the last two or three months will not go on for ever. Whatever the future may bring, the present does not show anything resembling a planned total evacuation of the Soviet Zone. It does not show a general panic in the Soviet Zone, a general rush for shelter in the West. The social strata from which the majority of refugees are recruited appear to he limited and well defined. They are farmers owning more than the very few paltry acres resulting from the redistribution of the former large estates; they are owners of small businesses, workshops, retail-stores and the like. There is a sprinkling of the pro- fessions, of civil servants, of Jews. But there are very few normal wage-earners, very few people who live on social security. This is to say the majority of refugees come from a minority of the population. They represent the last remnants of a " bourgeois " existence, of a " capitalist " existence.
Thus it is not so much the general character of the totali- tarian system, of the totalitarian terror which is at the root of the present development. It is the specific Soviet - policy directed against what still remains of the " middle classes " which is apt to terrorise and to annihilate those classes and to drive them out in order to avoid annihilation. The Soviet Zone of Germany is now experiencing what may be called the advanced stage of bolshevisation. A special kind of terror is applied to achieve this end. The farmer, for instance, whose property exceeds the minimum which would bring him into the system of the " kolkhozes," is faced with the obligation to deliver a fixed amount of agrarian products beyond the limit of his capacity. He encounters all kinds of difficulties in receiving the seeds necessary to cultivate his lands. He does not get his machinery repaired. He must pay high wages and receives low prices. He is simply driven into a situation where he cannot deliver to the authorities what he is supposed to deliver. That is the situation which amounts to " sabotage."
And sabotage is about the worst crime in the Soviet Zone. Faced with the alternative of being punished for sabotage or abandoning his property, the farmer chooses the latter course and becomes a refugee. Similar conditions prevail for the owners of shops and stores, for more or less independent artisans and the like.
Generally the Soviet Zonal authorities regard every able- bodied man or women as an asset, as part of the economic and military potential of the totalitarian system. But in the case of " capitalists " and the like the social revolution becomes more important than this general principle. Apart from the government and party hierarchy, there must be no elite .what- soever. No one is to owe his success to his own endeavour, to his own initiative, to his own property. There is to be no such thing as- independence, either spiritual or material. Independence is to be liquidated. That is what is happening at present in the Soviet Zone, the liquidation of the last remants of independence. It takes the form of mass-emigration to the West.
This is a grave, a very grave, development. Berlin alone cannot cope with the situation. The Federal Republic alone cannot cope with the situation. Berlin's mayor has recently returned from the United States, where he has found con- siderable understanding of the refugee problem. The High Commissioner for Refugees of the United Nations has offered help. This international solidarity .is gratefully recognised in Germany.
West Germany has become once again refugee-conscious and also Berlin-conscious. It is almost like in the days of the blockade and the air-lift. Private collections are going on everywhere. The Bundestag has passed a number of Bills. There is now a general " charter of the refugees " defining their status and their rights. There is a special emergency Bill, deal- ing with extraordinary measures to find shelter and accommo- dation for the refugees from the Soviet Zone in the territory of the Federal Republic. The organisation for the admission of individual refugees has been considerably improved. There was altogether too much red tape at first. No one is forced to go back to the Soviet Zone. There was and still is a category of refugees officially refused and inofficially admitted. But there are now far fewer refugees coming under this category. The refugee has no longer to prove that his life was threatened. If he can make it clear that conditions had become intolerable for him, he is granted official admission.
The general policy is to help the refugees who have arrived already and at the same time somewhat to discourage further arrivals unless flight becomes inevitable. The advice given to those still living in the Soviet Zone is : Stay as long as you can. Dr. Adenauer has said so in public. The West German broadcasts to the Soviet Zone are along the same lines. Every- thing is being done to avoid a panic in the Soviet Zone. But the long-term refugee problem is of course not merely transport and preliminary accommodation, but permanent employment, a new basis of existence.
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