The Doves of Berlin

Along East Berlin streets boxed in with grotesque caricatures of a bloody-handed Uncle Sam bludgeoning a prostrate world, half a million blue-shirted young Germans marched up & down this week yelling their battle cry: "Freundschaft!" (friendship). Occasion: the opening of Communism's World Youth Festival, a grandiose, two-week propaganda brawl, designed along the lines of last year's huge but unsuccessful Berlin youth rally.

East Germany's blood-Red Free German Youth Movement (FDJ) snared "peace doves" (as the Communists called the festival delegates) from Communist roosts all over the world. To swell the big flocks from East Germany, the other satellites and Russia, hundreds of Chinese and North Korean peace doves, some sporting Korean campaign medals, fluttered in via Moscow. The Reds also promised to deliver 100,000 from West Germany, but West Zone police turned back thousands of West German youths (although Red Zone policemen sent up smoke signals to guide delegates through gaps in West Zone border patrols).

New Fuhrer, Old Song. Kickoff for Berlin's program of pop, brass bands and long-winded propaganda was a giant "peace parade," escorted by heavily-armed young toughs of the East German People's Police. Garbed in their national costumes, 25,000 visiting Reds--including two Irishmen, ten Americans and one lonely New Zealander--joined with 100,000 young Germans in a cheering demonstration. In a welcoming speech, East German President Wilhelm Pieck brought to mind similar occasions under the Nazis, when he hailed "the great Fuhrer [Stalin] who gives the foremost example in the world fight . . ."

Three Soviet propaganda themes rose above the hullabaloo: 1) the old Russian lullaby cooing that Moscow seeks "unity with the peace-loving peoples everywhere"; 2) a nostalgic German love song urging the reunification of East and West Germany "under the leadership of ... the mighty Soviet Union"; 3) a war chant directed at U.S. "war profiteers."

The Counter-Attractions. The Reds expected their doves to carry these themes home with them, and many would. But thousands of the young Red delegates, disillusioned with the damp tent camps provided them, were more interested in the well-stocked shops on the west side of the Branderrburger Tor. West Berlin's Mayor Ernst Reuter ordered his police to keep all Red troublemakers out, but invited the peaceful doves to "come in, look around and breathe the free air of West Berlin for a few minutes."

In addition to West Berlin's relatively prosperous streets, the West's strongest counter-attractions last week: 1) free meals and movies; 2) a dazzling U.S. display of electric toy trains; 3) a U.S. Air Force helicopter which was sent up to keep an eye on the festival, but almost got lost in a swarm of 20,000 cooing pigeons released by the Communist state managers as symbols of Red-style "peace."

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