‘Outpost of Freedom’ : West Berlin----Troubled but Secure

In his successful campaign for reelection last March, Mayor Eberhard Diepgen criticized the Allied-powers law that theoretically makes it a capital offense for a West Berliner to carry a kitchen knife.

Diepgen used the extreme example to argue that some of the laws imposed by the four Allied powers after World War II and still govern the city 40 years later should be abolished or modified.

The youthful Diepgen, a Christian Democrat, was attempting to wrest the smoldering issue from the radical Alternate Liste party, which insists that U.S., British, and French forces in this still-divided city should pack up and go home.

There is little prospect for any substantive change in West Berlin’s political status. It remains an occupied city, with American, British and French military commanders nominally in charge of political and legal matters in their sectors.

Successful to a Point

But Diepgen has been successful--up to a point--in persuading the Allies to accommodate building demands from West Berliners.

The Allies have agreed to his call for a rechtsbereinigung, a “cleaning-up” of the laws, to eliminate the outdated provisions, including the one that would require a man with a kitchen knife to be sentenced to execution. That law was originally aimed at preventing Berliners from rearming themselves after the war. The process of updating the old legal codes is just beginning.

The issue of Allied control over West Berliners intermittently boils up, particularly among members of the younger generation. The young do not remember the days in 1945 when the Allies were welcomed as protectors, or 1948, when the Berlin Airlift saved the western half of the city from Soviet blockade, or 1961, when the East Germans erected the Wall to seal off the Communist East from the Capitalist West.

“Not all the young people share the attitudes of their parents that the Allied presence here is crucial,” admitted one U.S. diplomat. “Still, a hefty majority of West Berliners think the system still works and don’t believe the continuing economic progress here could have been made without the presence of the Allied powers.”

Minority Wants Troops Out

But the minority view, as reflected by the Alternative Liste, the Berlin version of West Germany’s Greens party, and some Social Democrats, is that West German laws should prevail here and almost all Allied troops should go. The critics appear to be acting out of nationalism, rather than discontent with real problems.

The critics contend that capital punishment, provided in the occupation laws, should be abolished in West Berlin--as it has been in West Germany.

“We want German courts and German laws,” contended Renate Kuenast, an Alternative Liste member of the West Berlin Parliament. “And we want to see the Western military presence reduced to a symbolic one. There’s no possibility to defend Berlin anyway.”

Most West Berliners would not go that far, though some believe that the Allied troops are no longer necessary to deter the Soviets or East Germans from taking over West Berlin.

Recent public opinion polls show that despite some annoyance with the occupation system, a sizable majority of West Berliners--upwards of 80%--believe that their security is indeed assured by the Western military presence here.

Further, those polled say they believe that West Berlin’s rising prosperity is due to the support of the three Western powers here. Signs of economic well-being are everywhere. West German banks are pumping in money to start up new high-tech firms in the city.

And you can even tune into the U.S. Armed Forces Network on television. Berliners with TV adapters could have watched the recent Chicago Bears-Los Angeles Rams game live on TV through the courtesy of the U.S. network.

For their part, Western diplomats acknowledge that some aspects of the occupation are nettlesome to West Berliners.

Some Berliners complain, for instance, that Allied soldiers tried for rape receive lighter sentences from military courts than they would in German civil courts.

And residents of the Gatow district objected to the British extending a military firing range there, although the British government insisted that the facility is necessary for the proper training of its 3,500-man force.

As the British ambassador to West Germany, Julian Bullard, put it succinctly, “Noise is the price of freedom.” Bullard doubles as chief of the British mission to West Berlin.

Acutely Conscious

The American military force, the 6,000-member Berlin Brigade, is acutely conscious of offending Berliners with disruptive maneuvers, so most of its units train in military areas inside West Germany where they can maintain their proficiency without disturbing the locals.

But some suburbanites who protested the construction of new housing for U.S. Army families could not get a hearing in courts in Berlin or Washington.

There have also been some moves on the part of Lufthansa German Airlines to gain access to West Berlin. For the past 40 years, only U.S., British and French airlines have been allowed to use the three air corridors over East Germany into West Berlin.

However, the West German government, which owns 80% of Lufthansa, does not want to rock the boat by pushing the matter too far.

No Automatic Response

U.S. diplomats are aware that the younger generation of Berliners, unlike their elders, may not respond as automatically to the concept of West Berlin as the “outpost of freedom” that rallied support for the Allies in previous years.

“I would call it the challenge of normality,” said John C. Kornblum, the senior U.S. diplomat in West Berlin.

“There are not too many people in the city who understand the actual status of West Berlin,” added another U.S. official.

That status can be confusing even to experts on international law.

In 1945, Berlin was divided into four sectors: The Soviets governed the eastern half, the French took the north, the British the northwest, and the Americans the southwest district of the city.

The future of the former German capital was to be determined by an international peace conference. But with the advent of the Cold War between East and West, that meeting never happened.

So the same situation prevails today: The Allies retain their position in their sectors by “right of conquest.” That right includes the final say on Berlin legislation and over the police force, although such control, say the Allies, is exercised with the greatest discretion and in cooperation with West Berlin authorities, who are elected in free balloting.

The Allies and the Soviets realized in the late 1960s, when Chancellor Willy Brandt’s principles of ostpolitik led to detente, that it could not work without some kind of accord on Berlin, a potential flash point.

No Final Solution

In September, 1971, the four powers signed the Quadriparte Agreement, which brought no final solution to the Berlin problem but did contain practical regulations that have relieved the tension in the city and reduced harassment by Western and Soviet troops.

Under the agreement, the Soviet Union no longer disputes the Western powers’ right to maintain a presence in Berlin and accepts the existing ties of West Berlin to the Federal Republic of Germany, including Bonn’s right to represent West Berlin to the outside world.

Traffic on roads, railways and waterways between Berlin and West Germany was put on a secure legal footing by the agreement and subsequent accords between the two German states.

In line with the unchanged legal position of the Western powers, West Berlin is still not a recognized part of West Germany nor is it governed by it. But the financial, legal and cultural ties between West Berlin and the Federal Republic continue to be maintained.

Curiously, the three Allies insist that even East Berlin comes under their theoretical jurisdiction, since they form with the Soviets the Allied Kommandatura, the mechanism set up at the end of the war. The three Western powers meet informally, but the Soviets pulled out of the Allied Kommandatura in 1948.

While the United States maintains an embassy in East Berlin, it is accredited to the East German regime and is responsible for all of East Germany--with the exception of East Berlin itself, which, in the U.S. view, comes under the jurisdiction of the American commander in West Berlin, an Army major general. And the U.S. commander answers to the U.S. ambassador in Bonn, the West German capital.

Complex Lines of Authority

“You have to be a real philosopher to hold two such opposing ideas in your head at the same time,” commented one U.S. diplomat of the complex lines of authority.

Even the Federal Republic recognizes Berlin’s special status: The city’s delegates to the Bundestag in Bonn act primarily as observers and cannot vote on national legislation, and its citizens are not subject to conscription in the armed forces.

And West Germany’s politicians are sympathetic to the complaints of West Berliners.

As one diplomat in Bonn put it, “The Alternatives are fresh young people who like to speak for themselves. They do not sound as if they are foreign-guided. They have some good arguments on their side. We also think the mayor has done a fine job; he is a very able and skillful politician.

“But we can’t go so far as to change the status of West Berlin under the four-power agreement.”

Total Agreement Needed

Basic to the Western view is that Berlin’s legal situation has not changed since 1945 and cannot be changed except by agreement of all four occupying powers, a view that is shared by the Bonn government.

According to this view, the Soviets would see any action on the part of the three Allies to relinquish their technical authority in West Berlin as a weakening of their position in the city.

“If we decided unilaterally to pull our troops out of West Berlin,” said one U.S. diplomat, “there is nothing to suggest that the Russians would view this as anything but our lack of resolve to maintain the status of the city.

“After all, this is not San Marino or Vatican City, where you are surrounded by a politically compatible state. Berlin is 110 miles from West Germany, and there are 350,000 Soviet and 150,000 East German troops stationed in East Germany surrounding West Berlin.”

And a West German government official summed up the problem: “We would like to alleviate certain aspects of the law in West Berlin, within the four-power framework. But for the sake of the security of West Berlin, we must remain shoulder-to-shoulder with our allies. We must accept Berlin’s status as it is.

“We must accept that there are some limits to civil rights. What we have to do is give Berliners a feeling of being protected and at the same time respecting their rights.

“This is a very special situation. But this is a very special city.”