Oldal 1 [1]
REPORT FROM B. s,
NOTE:
This observer has just returned from Berlin, after having
stayed there over a week and having had the opportunity of visiting
both sectors of the city and of talking with all the best informed
personalities. The following is the general impression gathered
from that "isolated island in a Red Sea*®,
Two worlds in one citye
Just like London, Paris or New York, Berlin once has been
a large single unit. Its business and residential, its governmental
and industrial sections were different in character, but they had the
unity of a common administration, economy and atmospheres
Today Berlin is divided between two worlds: the Western and
the Eastern ones
A demarcation line runs through the city and forms a true
bordere It is an absolute cut; both economically and politieally
speakinge :
Economically, the two sectors of the city are increasingly
evolv in op site a Berti s emarcation line is not a fiction:
it pete por cones 8 eg éz ea and inspected; no
forbidden goods are allowed to cross the line and interzonal passports "
have to be in orders Even so, few cars with West Berlin license dare
to pass the border: too often they have been confiscated, once on
Eastern territory, and never retu sg ers 209apedes trians
are not regularly checked. But there is a coritrol /and no one dares f.cx
to pass from the West to the Hast, carrying a larger parcel, brand new
shoes or anything that indicates a purchase in a Western shope Such
items would not likely pass the vigilant eyes of the border guards
and their confiscation would be the least to happen se.
Although Eastern Berlin is economically better off than the remainder
of the so-called DDR, the German Democratic Republic, its difference
with Western Berlin is striking: difference in money, in prices, in
goods available, in economic structure, in the rebuilding program,
in standard of living, in traffic ete.
Politically and ideologically, the opposition is more
impressive still; although from this point of view too, Eastern Berlin
is by far less isolated tha the Kussian Zone propere
A few small facts however are symptomatic and show that in this single
city, tvo worlds are developing. The mere atmosphere of HMastern berlin
is a sample of the Soviet world: uniformed men and women or proletarians
in the street; an atmosphere of distrust and silence; an ever-,resent
uninterrupted propaganda; a feeling of being cut-off, be it only by
the fact that Western press and publications are banned and that since
a few months, on astern initiative, Berlin's telephone net has been
cut in two and there is no more means of comunicating from one sector
to the othere
s 4S. Ji