No War Fear In Berlin Yet

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 12, Issue 83, 18 August 1948, Page 6

No War Fear In Berlin Yet

Wives of British soldiers and Control Commission officials remain in Berlin. Children are flying from Britain to spend their summer holidays here with their parents. It is a confidence better founded than at Singapore, 1941. The air lift, the most splendid gesture the Western Powers have made in Europe since the end of the war, worsens Russia’s position daily. She had apparently counted on starving the Western Powers out in a few weeks. Soviet failure to appreciate the capacity of the air lift was the first serious miscalculation in a hitherto finely judged campaign. Out of gear though her timetable may be Russia, in the opinion of top British administrators, will continue for the time being to play the game according to local Berlin rules. These are tortuous argument, trivial gestures of derision, gallery play, abuse, and civil stratagems, such as the cutting off of electric power, aimed at making life uncomfortable if not impossible in the Western sectors of the city. In three years wrangling in Berlin neither side has ever, overtly or implicity, threatened to take the issue to war. In a game played under the Berlin rules Russia has not all the advantages. The eastern zone of Germany, under her occupation, needs hard coal and steel from the Ruhr. This is another railway which is not working so well. The coal and steel are not coming through, and th'e Russian zone is feeling the pinch. Production has begun to drop a little, and there may be some degree of unemployment. Cashing in, Poland is charging Russia dollars for hard Silesian coal.

Further, each day Russia maintains the blockade, more German goodwill is transferred to the Western powers and their air lift. Berliners, with some knowledge of food problems Russia has failed to solve in her own sector of the city, do not place great stock by the Soviet promise to feed the whole city. The Russians are not insensitive to public opinion. The UNO incident of the Persian border was an example. Even more important, the Red Army marshals know something of the effect of a hostile populace on lines of communication. No one. for a moment believes anything to be the matter with the rail from Helmsted to Berlin. Trouble on the line remains the formal reason for the blockade, and its announced restoration to health would solve the deadlock without Russia’s losing face. - Prestige, more than any other consideration, dominates the Berlin situation. Out on a long limb swaying in the east wind, Britain and America have refused so flatly to be chivvied from the city that withdrawal now would shrink their stature to a grubby smudge. Russia, having taken prestige reverses in Yugoslavia and Finland, and not feeling so assured as she would like about Poland and Czechoslovakia, is equally determined to recover her old form. For the future there are hope and faith, but no easy promises. , Whatever the Berlin settlement is it will not restore trust and friendship. v The air lift is shifting about 2500 tons a day, and General Clay has undertaken to get this up to 4500 tons. Berlin municipal authorities say they need 6000 tons of food and coal a day as a minimum; besides the stockpile which must be built up against unflyable days in winter. So the Russian offer might have seemed shrewd to Berliners too, had they not, in passing freely between the sectors of their own city, seen that the Russians were not managing at all well with the one sector they were already trying to feed. Implementing the offer to feed the whole city, the Russians are to issue now ration books in Septem- !

NEW ZEALAND JOURNALIST FINDS GERMAN CAPITAL STRANGELY CALM STORM CENTRE (By Reece Smith, New Zealand Kemsley Empire Journalist) Berlin, July 27. Fear of immediate war has not yet penetrated to beleagured Berlin from London, New York and Wellington. At this arcing point of East-West high voltage the British are confident the Russians are in no hurry to fight.

faced with the pleasurable prospect of drawing off two ration books, are not complaining too stridently. .Food is still their primary interest. They are more interested in dinner today than shooting tomorrow along the Unter den-Linden. In the view of some Berliners the Russians may even still be a certain way ahead as pantrymen, as shortly before the clamping of the blockade there was four power agreement in the Kommandatura to increase Berlin’s rations by 10 per cent. Came the blockade, and allies had to repudiate this agreement. However meagrely they may have carried it out the Russians have not officially repudiated it, so they are some points ahead in this. On the other hand the air lift is a perpetual advertisement in the skies over Berlin, a thundering proclamation of the efforts Britain and the U.S. are making for Berlin. American planes fly to and from the centre of the city at Tempelhof. The R.A.F. aerodrome at Gatow is on the city’s edge, hut the Sunderlands and Yorks make it their business to come over to, show how much is being done for them, and by whom. A worthier demonstration at such a time than a mass bomber formation, yet little less persuasive in the lesson of power it has to teach. In the 24 hours ending 6 p.m. today the Americans handled 285 aircraft, Skymasters and Dakotas, at Templehof, and Gatow saw 107 flights by Dakotas, and 94 by Yorks, while Havel See nearby saw 14 by Sunderlands. In all, 500 landings with food and coal, and 500 take offs with Berlin civil mail, and exports from Berlin factories. And General Clay is going to step the undertaking up. Should these figures make, anyone think, they may rest assured the logistics men of the Red Army are thinking even harder about it all.