German Food Stockpiles Sent to Moscow
Food from Berlin’s Cold War stockpiles began the journey to Moscow today as a massive air-land-sea operation to help feed the Soviet public during a long and bitter winter got under way.
“It is one of the paradoxes of world history,” Berlin Transport Minister Horst Wagner commented as he prepared the first shipment to the city’s former antagonist.
Thirty-six Red Army trucks were loaded with 100 tons of dried milk and bandages at Berlin warehouses and driven to the Soviet air base at Sperenberg, south of the city, where they were loaded aboard four Antonov-22 transports.
In Bonn, government spokesman Hans Klein said that about 250,000 tons of Berlin stockpiles and army rations, with a value of about $386 million, would be sent.
Three thousand tons of the total will be airlifted, at the rate of 150 to 200 tons per day over the next two weeks, and the rest will be sent by road, rail and sea, using Soviet and German transport, over the next two to three months, he said.
Chancellor Helmut Kohl announced the gift Nov. 29, after his foreign affairs counselor, Horst Teltschik, went to Moscow, where Soviet officials handed over a list of urgent food priorities.
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