Exit Tulpanov
By REGINALD COLBY
Two days before the new Eastern German republic was set up the Soviet News Agency announced, very discreetly, that Major-General Tulpanov had left Berlin for Moscow "some weeks ago." In the British Press comments on this unexpected information he was alternatively named as the Political Chief of the Soviet Administration in Germany and as its Propaganda Chief. Tulpanov is actually both, and I use the present tense because, although he has left his office in Karlshorst in the heart of the Russian sector of Berlin, he has not been the victim of any intrigue ; hc has not been removed because his policy was not acceptable or because he had failed ; we shall not hear of him publishing a book in America on how he chose freedom. Major-General Tulpanov, the representative of the Kremlin in Germany and member of the Agitation and Propaganda Committee of the Communist Party ; the exceedingly clever and charming Russian officer who can talk so delightfully on culture and tell his Allied listeners how popular their art is in Russia ; this key man in the Soviet hierarchy, the specialist on German affairs, the graduate of Heidelberg University, this all-important Russian, has gone back to Moscow because he has achieved in the Soviet zone and Soviet sector of Berlin at least what he was ordered to do in 1945 when he came to Berlin with the Red Army, leading by the hand the German Communists he had so carefully looked after in Moscow ever since 1933.
It was to these returned exiles, men such as Wilhelm Pieck, Walter Ulbricht, Dr. Wandel and scores more, that the most important jobs in the Russian zone were immediately given. Today these men are about to take over the job of ruling the new "German Democratic Republic" which Major-General Tulpanov has called into being. His plans have at last—after four years' work in Germany and many more years before that in Moscow—come to fruition. It was only natural that, having achieved his ends, he should retire gracefully from the scene, and make it seem as if the "New German Republic" had evolved quite naturally, that it was created by the people and for the people. Actually the new Eastern German State is no more a natural growth than is Communist Hungary or the People's
Republic of Bulgaria. It will subsist because the Russian zone still remains filled with Russian troops. The Russians have made great capital out of removing their troops from Berlin to give place to thr new German Government—thereby making the Western Powers look as if they had no business there ; but they have gone no farther than Potsdam which, as everyone knows, is half an hour by the district railway from the centre of Berlin.
The Kremlin did very well for itself when it entrusted their "Operation Germany" to the hands of sth.h a capable man as Col. Tulpanov (as he was then), who has been the eminence rouge behind each of the successive Soviet Commanders-in-chief. He has played an astonishingly astute game. For the first two years of the occupation he appeared to the Allies and to the great mass of the Germans in Berlin and the Eastern zone as a Russian officer whose great interests were centred on art and Kultur. How pleased we were when he accepted an invitation to come to Hamburg as our guest to see the first German performance of Peter Grimes. He was full of praise for this "democratic English opera." How pleased the Berliners were when they saw ibis bald-headed, pink-faced Soviet officer with the bright blue eyes sitting in the front row of the theatre. The Germans were very susceptible to Kultur and the Russians knew it. Everything the Colonel did "was for the good of the Germans "; it was unfortunate that no high Allied officer showed this intimate interest in them. For many Germans allowed themselves to be takert in by the wonderful bedside manner of the Russian Colonel. The Western Allies in the early years of thc occupation rather gave the impression that they would not mind if the patient—Germany—(which had caused so much suffering In the world) died. And when we did begin to apply remedies a great cry went up from the Russians that they were the wrong ones.
The astonishing thing is that month after month this Russian Colonel—his relatively low rank was deceptive—sat at the same table with his three colleagues in the Allied Control Council building in Berlin, and gave the impression that he was only interested in working out a common policy for the control of German news- papers, theatres, films, art—Kultur of all kinds. For in his official position as Head of the Information Services in the Soviet zone he was the opposite number—on paper—of the British and American Generals and French representative who were the heads of their respective information services. How was it that Colonel Tulpanov was never either unmasked as a propagandist or, better still, that his personal interest in German affairs was not imitated by one of his Allied colleagues ? He was—in a word—allowed to get away with it for two whole years. He tore his mask off finally with his own hands—at the second Party Conference of the Socialist Unity Party (which he founded in March, 1946).
This monster rally took place in September, 1947, in the full glare of Hitlerian publicity in the State Opera House in Berlin. Imagine the scene. The large auditorium packed with party delegates from all over the Soviet zone and the Soviet sector. On the stage, draped with red streamers and plastered with slogans demanding a "united Germany," sit the bosses of the Socialist Unity Party- 71-year-old Wilhelm Fleck, Otto Grotewohl (the Prime Minister elect of the new Eastern Republic), Walter Ulbricht and the heads of the various administrations in the Soviet zone. There is music which quickens the pulses, then the first speaker rises. He is not a German but a Russian officer, Colonel Tulpanov, who launches into a long fiery speech calling on his listeners to "smoke out all opposition" in "that other Germany "—in the West ; claiming that only the Soviet Union is interested in restoring German unity ; and attacking the Western Powers for preventing the Communists from travelling from the West to Berlin. His ironic remark : "Perhaps they have been held up by a snowstorm" is uncannily reminiscent. Go back ten years, to 1937, during the months before the Anschluss, and you hear Hitler using almost identical language in his attacks on the Schuschnigg Government. Tulpanov, too, was addressing Germans " beyond the frontiers." He made this speech in German—a tour de: force which few if any of the Allied leaders could hope to emulate. After this sensational oration it was not surprising that he did not attend any more meetings or come to any more allied parties and drink toasts with us. He was waiting for the next move ; and he only had to wart six months ; for in March, 1948, the "Berlin crisis" began.
Ever since the days of the Russian revolution Berlin has always been the great prize in the eyes of the Russian Communists. In 1945, when the Red Army fought its way into the German capital, that long-term objective was reached. But the prize had to be shared with the Western Allies whom the Russians grudgingly admitted into Berlin nearly three months after their own arrival. However the men in the Kremlin and their representative in Germany —Tulpanov—were pretty sure of achieving their ends even if they did give this sop to Allied unity. They relied on their propaganda and they had an almost certain knowledge that we had no plan for Germany—and we had none except in conjunction with the Russians. However, their propaganda failed and when they resorted to as near force as they dared with the blockade, the Western Powers answered with the airlift. Now the Russians, still with the ace of trumps up their sleeve (the command of our land-communications to Berlin), have resorted to propaganda once more. The whole process is beginning again, though on a much larger scale. For now they are dangling in front of Germans the attractions of an "independent State," which includes an immediate end to dismantling, a speedy conclusion of a just peace and withdrawal of all occupation troops, the appointment of a Foreign Minister and—most attractive of all— Berlin as the capital of Germany.
This last move represents the culmination of all that General Tulpanov has worked for during the last ten or more years. It is the Kremlin plan for Germany in miniature—since it only extends over that part of Germany controlled by the Russians. And even here they still have not the key—Berlin—which is indispensable for carrying out the Russian plan. In order to launch an Anschluss campaign their German stooges must speak from a completely Communist-controlled Berlin. As long as the Berliners, supported by the Western Powers, continue to resist this Russian political pressure—as they have done in the past—all will be well, and this second Germany, founded on terror and the one party system, can never set up as a rival to the freely constituted Western State. Berlin must remain Western. Only a firm answer from the Western Powers can defeat the plans of General Tulpanov, who, although he has made his exit from the Berlin scene, is anxiously watching in the wings.
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