862A.00/1–1552
No. 532
Memorandum of Conversation, by the
Deputy Director of the Berlin Element, HICOG (Lyon)2
Those present included Dr. Ernst Reuter, Governing Mayor of Berlin; Dr. Paul Hertz, Senator for Marshall Plan and Credits; Mr. Cecil B. Lyon, Director, HICOG Berlin Element; Mr. David M. Maynard, Deputy Director, HICOG Berlin Element.
The conversation was held in Dr. Reuter’s home, a most informal and cordial atmosphere.
In discussing the present situation of Berlin, Mayor Reuter stated that the very complicated structure of the Kommandatura made things extremely difficult and that it was literally physically impossible for Berlin officials to develop close contact and deal with three foreign entities on innumerable details.
He admitted that important progress had recently been made in streamlining the Committees of the Kommandatura but felt that even more progress could be made in this direction.
He stated that as he had originally gone on record that he would like to see the Kommandatura abolished and Berlin become the 12th Land and foreign troops to remain as a defense group, he stressed, however, that he had formally and publicly accepted for the present the Allied position of “no 12th Land Status” and will not therefore in any way work for this status at the moment. In reply to a question from Mr. Lyon, the Mayor stated clearly that he felt that it was not the “fiction” of the quadripartite Kommandatura that in any way deterred the Soviets from action in Berlin, but rather the presence of Allied troops here.
On the general position of Berlin he emphasized that there was too little thought in Western Germany of the Berlin situation and too little thought among the Allies; that if even one-tenth of the [Page 1236] thought given to the Schuman Plan had been devoted to Berlin, that the position here would undoubtedly be much better. He pointed to a specific example that the GDR [GFR] in Bonn even forgot entirely Berlin in the initial discussions of the Schuman Plan and this was, unfortunately, indicative of the frequent attitude of Bonn towards Berlin.
In turning to the trade problem he indicated that he deeply regretted the unreliability of the statistics which have been recently exposed but indicated that with the present attitude of the Berlin industrialists and the critical situation of Berlin business vis-à-vis East Germany, that really accurate statistics were going to continue to be extremely difficult to secure. He stated that he would welcome an American economist who would work in their statistical bureau in any attempt to improve it, but also to show that the statistics required were not available under present conditions.
He stated that the harassment by the Soviets was probably at the lowest point in any time in Berlin’s history. He is inclined to believe that this situation may continue for the immediate present although he emphatically stated that it is impossible ever to predict what the Soviets will do.
He intimated that some East-West trade talks were going on at the moment but that he had not been informed as to any current details. The Mayor had also heard the story that has recently come to our attention that the original demand of the Soviets for certificates of origin was really a Soviet bureaucratic “error”. He is inclined to give credence to this story. The Mayor stated that he has talked to many Berlin tradesmen who after all think of German trade from a different light than the Allies and see triangular trade continuing. A specific example was quoted of an order of some carburetors which a Berlin factory withheld from delivery to the East Zone and, to their dismay, discovered that some of the carburetors shipped to England had returned to the East Zone via Hamburg. This was given as an illustration that the West Berlin industrialists did not feel that the embargo had been very successful from their point of view.
Mayor Reuter stated that he would like to see the Interzonal Trade Agreement implemented and that he did not believe that this implementation would in itself have any effect on the harassment by the Soviets or lack of harassment. However, if the trade between West Berlin and the East Zone were cut completely for a long period of time, that this fact alone might make the Soviets revise their attitude toward Berlin, since one of the Soviets’ reasons for permitting present status of Berlin was East-West trade. Mayor Reuter also felt that any East-West trade was definitely a thread toward unification, whereas, on the other hand, if there was [Page 1237] no East-West trade the very fact would deepen the chasm or wedge between East and West Germany.
In regard to the airlift he stressed the importance of flexibility and pointed out that in the early part of the present airlift this lack of flexibility was very serious. It is for this extremely important point of flexibility that he would prefer a military airlift, and in reply to a question from Mr. Maynard, acquiesced that the actual cost of planes flying in a military airlift might be worked out in a somewhat parallel way to the cost of commercial planes, but that flexibility was the element that was needed. It was completely impossible to predict what the Soviets would do in the future.
The Mayor then proceeded to discuss the financial situation of Berlin. He stated that there were more taxes coming in than last year but that a good portion of these went on to the GDR[GFR], that business was building up slowly in Berlin but this, on the other hand, meant for the moment more unemployment because factories now were increasing their efficiency and streamlining their production in some cases by dropping off surplus employees. Mr. Hertz stressed the importance of the work relief program, pointing out that work relief now was on a “productive” basis rather than a leaf-raking basis, but that present funds were to be given out on April 1st and that the city was very much worried about the financial possibilities after April 1st.
The Mayor then said that it was for this reason that he had not been very enthusiastic in talking to Mr. McCloy over the industrial development question as proposed, not because that he did not think it was a good idea, but rather because he was preoccupied at the moment as to the security of funds for the immediate future for the regular program and until there was some assurance of such funds, it was difficult to be enthusiastic about future large investment programs. Both the Mayor and Dr. Hertz, emphasized that they felt it would be most unfortunate from a psychological point of view to cut down the works relief program in the near future when the unemployment rolls were maintaining their present level and it would have an unfortunate reaction on the thinking of the Berlin people.
Mr. Lyon raised the question of the possibility of securing workers for coal mines. The Mayor pointed out that the large load of unemployed in Berlin were white-collar people and women, and that it was very difficult to recruit miners from this group, but they had recruited some miners during the past two years, but that at the moment he was afraid it had not been and could not be significant.
[Page 1238]He was extremely interested in how the MSA allocations to Germany would in practice affect Berlin and that he hoped some clarification would be forthcoming in the near future.
- Transmitted in despatch 581 from Berlin, Jan. 15.↩