Bonn Army Officers Visit East Germans
West German officers were greeted for the first time on East German soil Wednesday when they arrived to observe military maneuvers.
The two officers arrived by car in the Soviet garrison town of Potsdam with officials from 19 other countries to observe maneuvers involving 23,500 Soviet and 1,500 East German troops.
“We are here to see that the conditions of the Stockholm conference are obeyed,” West German Col. Hans-Henning Kahmann told reporters before a briefing by Soviet and East German officers at a Potsdam hotel.
Under East-West agreements reached at the Stockholm conference on European security, North Atlantic Treaty Organization and Warsaw Pact countries must invite observers to any military maneuvers involving more than 17,000 troops.
East Germany has regularly denounced the West German armed forces as heirs to reactionary and aggressive German military traditions while vaunting its own forces as a democratic body.
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