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By Margrit Pittman

WEST BERLIN

The morning of my trip to West Berlin its _

Senate announced it was considering con-
Struction of atomic shelters in subway tun-
hels and would appropriate large sums for
the undertaking. This would permit people to
Survive nuclear attacks for two weeks in un-
derground bunkers. The announcement was
Made a few days after the U.S. Senate had
voted funds for development of the neutron
bomb.

I thought about this madness as I drove
toward the border which cuts across Berlin’s
Friedrichstrasse. The boundary between
Berlin, capital of the German Democratic
Republic, and West Berlin was established
by the cold war and it runs for 30 miles
round the 192:square miles of West Berlin.

For comparison, Chicago’s area is 227
Square miles. ) :

Waiting at the passport control, I pon-

dered that here, especially, it is obvious that
he only protection against the sinister nuc-
lear arsenal is peace and disarmament.

West Berlin, 100 miles inside the GDR and _

‘Adjoining its capital, must feel threatened; if
forces equipped with nuclear
‘Warheads unleashed nuclear destruction
‘Against the GDR, and if the socialist camp
Contemplated military action against West

Be ‘lin, it could easily be taken by conven-
tional weapons. But whatever the thinking
behind the shelter proposal, it seems clear

that even discussion of such a project fans

the flames of GDR/West Berlin frontier men-
and and stalls expansion of peaceful rela-

ns,

One purpose of my trip was to investigate
how West Berlin is faring five years after the
four-power agreement went into effect on
June 3, 1972. That agreement between the
World War IT allies and former German oc-
Cupation forces — the United States, the
Soviet Union, Britain and France — was

$igned after 25 years of cold war during
‘Which Berlin as:‘‘the advanced outpost” of

capitalism.
‘Despite this agreement, which outlines
West Berlin’s legal status as a neutral politi-

“Cal unit independent of both German states,

tis an ailing city. Its population is declining.
thas shrunk from 2.15 million in 1973 to.1.9
Million in 1977; estimates for 1990 vary bet-
Ween 1.65 and 1.5 million. One third of its
Citizens are over 65 and job opportunities for

‘those in the labor force are diminishing.
I went to see Dietmar Ahrens, deputy

Chairman of the Socialist Unity Party of
West Berlin (SEW). He briefed me on the
City’s problems and his party’s projected
Temedies. ‘‘There has been a loss of 120,000
Jobs in the past six years,’’ he said. ‘In other
Words, jobs are phased out at the rate of
20,000 a year. Unemployment is 4.8% and
While it fluctuates, it does not go down dras-
tically. It is disastrous among young people.
Officially there are 20,000 unemployed
oe and that is an undercount of at least

___ Inthe electrical industry, Berlin’s biggest
€mployer, 91% of all investments are used to
Tationalize and automate.

“Many young people are forced to leave
because they can’t find work here. Some-
times employers offer them jobs in the FRG
When they close down here. Workers also
Seek jobs in other countries of the European
Community.’’ Most large West Berlin
*mployers are branches of FRG concerns.

Many protests against employment cut-
backs take place, Ahrens said. ‘There is in-

Creasing realization that something is wrong | ~

With the system. This is a new development
@ town where a widely accepted slogan
Was ‘Every strike helps Ulbricht.’ ” (This is
areference to the late Walter Ulbricht, first
Secretary of the SED until 1971.)
Ahrens quoted examples. In October 1976,

G, one of the large electrical appliance

Concerns, announced its intention to close its
Ackerstrasse plant by mid-1977. Of the 850
‘Workers, 350 were to be laid off and 500 trans-
ferred to another Berlin AEG plant. This,
After 1,000 jobs have been lost in the past 10
Years despite constantly rising production.
¢., At first the workers invited Mayor Klaus
Schuetz (since voted out of office) to ‘help
them’ keep their jobs. When they saw that

Workers protesting layoffs at a fiber pla

West Berlin:

An ailing city

Woet Berlin's transit workers protest layotfe cuts In social and public services.

oe

Schuetz would do nothing for them, they or-
ganized a car caravan to city hall demanding
that their jobs be saved. After that, money

was collected to run an ad in a local paper

' showing what the job slaughter does to Rer-

lin. About 30,000 workers in other enterprises
Signed petitions on behalf of AEG workers.
“A new aspect of the fight for jobs is that
workers from other plants are joining in the
struggle. Just recently the second largest
chemical plant in the city, in which the
Hoechst concern holds majority stock, has
announced a cutback of 710 jobs. That is tan-

tamount to closing down. A large protest.

movement is developing around that.’’

The long range solution, Ahrens said, is to
increase trade with socialist countries, espe-
cially the GDR, by “‘utilizing the advantages
of our position.” ‘

There are, he said, a few plants. in West
Berlin whose chief production is based on

‘trade with the GDR, but the four-power

agreement has brought few advances in the
economic sphere. The gréatest benefits have
_been the transit and visitors agreement. In
the five years, West Berliners have made 17
million visits to the GDR, but beyond that
improvements have been minor because the

. West Berlin Senate resists relaxation.

“One of the best examples of this folly,”’
Ahrens said, ‘is the question of power sup-
ply. The city has its own power stations —
some coal, some oil fuel. Since the city is not
tied to a power network, it needs far greater
power production than other cities its size. It
is estimated that the current production will
no longer be adequate in the eighties.

“As a result of emissions from the power’

stations and industry, West Berlin is consi.

dered dangerously polluted.

“The GDR has long submitted proposals
for providing additional power to West Ber-
lin from its power grid. However, this offer
has never been seriously considered. In-

_Stead, the Senate planned a new power sta-
tion to be built in a conservation area in
Spandau near the GDR border.

‘‘A very large and broad popular move-
ment — we call it a citizens’ initiative — de-
veloped against the use of this site because
West Berlin has so little recreational land.
They finally got a court order to stop the city
from building there. At present, plans are
under way to build it at another spot which

- will also use up precious forest land. But they:

would rather do that than come to terms with
the GDR.” oe

Actually it would not be difficult to make
an agreement about electricity. There are
longstanding agreements with the GDR on
sewage and garbage disposal.

Asked whether the West Beriin citizen’s
image of the GDR has changed since the
four-power agreement, Ahrens said, ‘You

must remember that West Berlin had proba-

bly the most virulent anti-socialist and, in
particular, anti-GDR propaganda.
“Now that West Berliners have seen it
with their own eyes — and the majority have
— one can no longer tell them that people in
the other Berlin live badly. After all, prices
can be compared and there was a real flurry’
of potato smuggling into West Berlin this
spring. Therefore, the propaganda has
changed. No people are told that though GDR
citizens may live comfortably, they don’t
have freedom.” :

. There are many examples to show that
West Berlin’s freedom is by no means impar-
tial to class positions. On my way to the SEW
office I saw a huge portrait of Adolf Hitler
advertsing Joachim Fest’s film, Hitler — A
Career, at one of the large first-run houses.
On the other hand, progressive film produc-
ers can’t well to TV stations; internationally
lauded theater companies are barred from
performing here; and painters sometimes
find that their work has been removed from
exhibits by a political mafia.

The four-power agreement specifically

states that the Western sectors of Berlin
(formerly the U.S., British and French sec-

tors) “continue not to be a constituent part of

_ the Federal Republic of Germany and not to

. be governed by it.”” But there are continued
efforts to undermine this provision.

Hope to annex West Berlin to the FRG, in
violation of the quadpartite agreement, are
behind the reluctance to expand economic
relations with the GDR. The losers in this
contest are the people of West Berlin whose
lives are blighted by the West Berlin Senate’s
refusal to face realities.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—OCTOBER 14, 1977—Page 9