The Most Precarious Post

Above all, Georg Dertinger was a man who survived. He prided himself on stepping out of the ashes, unscarred, adjusting his monocle and going on. He not only got along well while his country almost perished, he profited by its convulsions.

In the '20s, as a bullyboy in the paramilitary nationalist Freikorps, and as a poison-pen rightist journalist, Dertinger helped kill off the democratic Weimar Republic. When Hitler came in, he became an official in Goebbels' Propaganda Ministry, with a big picture of Von Ribbentrop on his desk. Then when the Russians arrived, Georg confided to a friend, "I will walk the tightrope over Communism as surely as I did over Naziism." '

The Sure Thing. For a while he did. He became a frontman for the Reds: chairman of the East zone puppet Christian Democratic Union, and the non-Communist Foreign Minister of East Germany. He sold out his people, signing away to Poland all Germany east of the

Oder-Neisse line. In return, he got a congratulatory telegram from Vishinsky, two villas, a ration of 15 bottles of schnapps and 350 U.S. cigarettes monthly, and two mistresses. Every Thursday he enjoyed an all-night vodka bout with Russian Political Chief Vladimir Semenov. "What can happen to me?" he used to say. "If the Russians stay on top, I'll stay on top. If the Americans win, I'll just be taken to a camp and go on smoking Chesterfields."

But in the Russians, Georg Dertinger met his match. The Russians, who had bought him so cheaply, knew his worth. One night, 17 months ago, State Security Police arrested him, and five others, including both of his mistresses. They were accused of spying for the West and of plotting to overthrow the Red government. Last week the verdict was announced. One mistress got three years' sentence; the other, an eleven-year term. Georg Dertinger: 15 years' hard labor.

Opportunist Dertinger should have known better than to be a satellite Foreign Minister, perhaps the most precarious post of all. The roll call of what befell seven other foreign ministers in the past eight years:

Jan Masaryk, Czechoslovakia, jumped or was pushed from a window 1948.

Vladimir Clementis, Czechoslovakia, executed 1952.

David Vaclav, Czechoslovakia, current Foreign Minister, disappeared 1954.

Petko Stainov, Bulgaria, demoted 1946.

Gheorghe Tatarescu, Rumania, fired 1947, confined to his home.

Ana Pauker, Rumania, ousted 1952, reportedly awaiting trial.

Laszlo Rajk, Hungary, executed 1949.

Gyula Kallai, Hungary, disappeared

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