PARTISAN REVIEW
letters reach Berlin. They know that the conditions in city and country
do not differ from the miserable conditions in the Western Zones, that
Berlin merely reflects the whole of the territory that was once Germany.
Furthermore, some of them hav.e been with the Nazi armies in Russia,
some returned as prisoners of war, looking like the inmates of Belsen
and Buchenwald in their last stages of development. Local experiences
are not their only criteria. But because of these experiences all that is
Russian takes on a particularly sinister character.
The immediate situation, however, calls for duplicity. As long as
there is a chance to pledge allegiance to the West, the chance is taken
in the illusory hope that this may influence the decision of the Western
powers to stay in Berlin. Simultaneously, the Russians are supported
wherever necessary, in order not to arouse their wrath, in case the city
should
be
theirs completely. As there are no escapes for the masses,
their attitudes change with their masters. Democratic Berlin will be
even more "democratic" as soon as the basis for its current democracy–
four power competition-is removed. Meanwhile, people can do no more
than bewail their reluctance to follow suit at the first great exodus to the
Western zones, at the earliest rumors of a possible Berlin crisis. Now
they are trapped, to be sold out if so convenient, or to be used in a kind
of test-case for the larger issues at stake. Those who do not live by
politics will prefer to do as they are told, no matter who does the telling.
The Western-oriented politicians will, at best, become refugees. In their
majority they will probably crowd still more the already crowded Rus–
sian concentration camps. In any case, German preferences do not
count; the present flood of brave slogans about the Berliners' valiant re–
fusal to bow to the new dictatorship is only silly, facing, as Berlin does,
an army judged able, in case of war, of overrunning the whole of Ger–
many within a few days.
IV
The political issues that seemingly agitate the Berliners only in–
dicate their own impotence. Their interest in politics is waning. They
would, no doubt, support any power, and any cause, in exchange for
bread and security. They would even try to forget their early experiences
with the Russians. But no bread and no security is forthcoming. It is
the obvious poverty of the Russians, their strange primitiveness, their
crude terroristic methods, their inability to give, and their need to take
where hardly anything is left to take, that makes the Germans prefer
the West. Even if nothing is
to
be
expected from either side, still there
is a greater familiarity with the Western world. There is also the strong
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