Berlin Passes the Hat for Quake Victims : Assistance: A Los Angeles sister city says it owes a great debt to all Americans. Response is said to be strong.

Declaring that it owed a debt to all Americans for their protection during the Cold War, the city government here launched a campaign Tuesday to collect donations for victims of the Los Angeles earthquake. Contributions quickly started coming in.

“Berliners will never forget the way the United States helped our city and our country in the hour of our greatest need,” said Berlin Mayor Eberhard Diepgen in a letter to his Los Angeles counterpart, Richard Riordan.

Los Angeles has had a sister city link with Berlin since 1967.

The city Tuesday established a special account at the Berliner Bank entitled “Earthquake Victims” and distributed the account number to the region’s media.

Berlin government spokesman Klaus Hetzel said one of the city’s most popular radio stations, called 100.6, donated 10,000 German marks ($5,800) and the Museum on Checkpoint Charlie pledged 1,000 marks ($580).

Response from the public reportedly has also been strong.

Several thousand American soldiers have been stationed in the western part of the German capital since the end of World War II, keeping the city from being strangled by Soviet forces in 1948 by operating the famous Berlin airlift, then facing off against Soviet troops across Checkpoint Charlie during one of the Cold War’s most tense periods in the early 1960s.