Blocked Currency

For the first time since the 1948 Soviet blockade, the Communists this week shut off German traffic on the Autobahn linking West Berlin and West Germany. Armed Red police forbade anyone to leave East Berlin and searched anyone trying to enter it. With his state thus sealed off, East German Premier Grotewohl went on the air at 8 a.m. Sunday to jolt his people out of bed. Grotewohl gave East Germans just 14 hours to hand in all their currency. Sleepy-eyed, they rushed to special conversion centers to get one new mark for each old one. No one was allowed to carry away more than 300 of the new marks (about $16); the rest was payable after a six-day wait. Unable to cross the border, businessmen and bankers in West Berlin found themselves in helpless possession of millions of East German marks that by nightfall had become worthless.

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