The second Battle of Berlin Ñ17 June 1953
UNITED NATIONS Ñ ÒSoviet tanks Fights Riots in Berlin,Ó flashed the news around the world as the workers of East Berlin attempted to throw off the shackles of their rigid communist system. Fifty years ago on the 17th of June 1953, seething sentiments against MoscowÕs marionettes ruling east Germany burst into the streets as the people of the PeopleÕs Republic voted a vocal and resounding ÒNoÓ to their Soviet-style regime.
Viewing the Berlin demonstrations President Dwight Eisenhower called the strikes a significant exposure of the propaganda about ÒhappinessÓ behind the Iron Curtain. West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer proclaimed that the manifestations graphically illustrated a peopleÕs will to be free.
Yet like a beautiful but short-lived flower, East Berliners hopes and aspiration for such freedoms were crushed under the tank treads of Soviet armored divisions sent in to Òrestore order,Ó and reestablish the pseudo-freedom of the proletarian ÒGerman Democratic Republic.Ó
Under the haunting shadow of the recently deposed Third Reich, the protests of June 17, 1953 were more than willing to brave the tanks and the shock troops of the new totalitarians entrenched in the eastern sector of their proud city. As much as the 1948 Berlin Airlift signaled renewed friendship between the Allies and the Germany, the 17th June solidified the bonds between brothers at the opposite sides of the Brandenburg Gate graphically dividing the East and West sectors.
The defiant chants of the East Berlin strikers along the Stalinallee were soon drowned out by the shrill sirens, the staccato of submachine gun fire, and the clanking of Soviet tanks which eclipsed the shining spirit of that jubilant June Day.
Dr. Rainer Hildebrandt a leading human rights activist in West Berlin once told me, ÒResistance to the Soviet Union started in Berlin on the 17th of June, it later spread to Budapest, Prague, and Warsaw.Ó
A fitting epitaph for the 17th June is found in the New York Times editorial of the day, ÒThe Germans of East Berlin have made a gesture that will rank high in the history of Germany and of European civilization. They fought for liberty against tyranny Ñ blindly, hopelessly, and bravely.Ó
That struggle lasted another two generations until the jubilation when Berlin Wall collapsed, leading to the peaceful reunification of a democratic Germany in 1990.
In 1956 came the Hungarian revolution. The fledgling but dogged government of Imre Nagy wrested a degree of independence from a Russian bear caught totally unprepared by the level of resentment Hungarians harbored for their Soviet masters.
Budapest became a flashpoint in Central Europe as the Hungarian patriots engaged in a Herculean struggle against the Soviets. The UN Security Council stood by helplessly as in the face of MoscowÕs wrath. The Soviets smashed the revolt but not the Hungarian spirit for freedom.
PragueÕs turn came in 1968. Although the Czechoslovakian events were not based on a militant armed opposition but a movement for gradual reform known as the Prague Spring. But even as the communist reformers such as Dubcek discovered to their dismay, the Kremlin would brook no deviationøthe Warsaw Pact invaded in August.
Poland, of course, presented the Soviet Empire with its most serious, multifaceted, and indeed fatal challenge. A fortuitous combination of a Polish Pope John Paul II, the charismatic Solidarity trade union leader Lech Walesa, and both President Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher brought together a rare combination of spiritual, political, and philosophical opposition to MoscowÕs rule.
Yet those echoes from the streets of Berlin resounded throughout Middle Europe as this divided city became a metaphor for the battle of ideas between totalitarian communism and freedom.
The epic changes of 1989 saw the subsequent reunification of Berlin and Germany itself, and the advent of free and democratic governments in Budapest, Prague and Warsaw. The Hungarians, the Poles and now the Czechs have voted to join the European Union and thus will fully complete European reunification in peace and freedom.
John J. Metzler is a U.N. correspondent covering diplomatic and defense
issues. He writes weekly for World Tribune.com.
See current edition
of
   |
