Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T02:45:47.362Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Berlin and the German Problem

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2011

Kurt L. Shell
Kurt L. Shell
Affiliation:
State University of New York
Get access

Extract

The acute phase of the Berlin crisis appears to be past. It began with the Soviet “ultimatum” of November 17,1958, and petered out in the aftermath of the showdown over Cuba. But though there are many indications that for some time a renewal of the threatening pressure on Berlin—West Berlin, to be precise—need not be expected, there can be no assurance that the situation will not blow up in our faces at any moment any day, as the death of Peter Fechter at the Wall in August 1962 illustrated. Also, we are as far as ever from a real solution for the admittedly abnormal situation of this city. And it still remains an open question whether, with the passage of time, acceptance and adjustment to the brutal abnormality of the Wall and the division of Germany will win out over growing frustration and the explosive and dangerous consequences of disappointed hopes for unification and liberation. Thus Berlin is likely to remain indefinitely both a thermometer indicating the temperature of the Cold War and a time-bomb that resists defusing.

Type
Review Articles
Information
World Politics , Volume 16 , Issue 1 , October 1963 , pp. 137 - 146
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1963

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 It should be pointed out, however, that “ideology” based on party adherence is a stronger factor than location. Thus Franz Amrehn, until February 1963 the CDU “Assistant Mayor” of Berlin, has generally followed the “hard line” pursued in Bonn. Though his ill-fated break with Brandt over the latter's proposed visit to Khrushchev may have been related to electoral and party considerations, it nevertheless reflected Amrehn's deep opposition to any exploratory moves that might be interpreted as “softness toward communism”.

2 In several speeches, Dean Acheson has recently castigated United States policymakers for their passivity on the question of German reunification. It appears highly doubtful to this reviewer that any active reunification policy acceptable to the Federal Republic as well as the other NATO powers can be developed.