The gravity of the situation rests not only on the importance of Germany’s future political coloration in relation to Europe but on the fact that Germany and specifically Berlin, the focal point for the political battle, are occupied by troops of the Soviet Union, the United States, the United Kingdom and France. Where troops of two antagonistic power groups are in close contact as they are in Berlin, the possibility of the type of “incidents” which lead to war is always present. Intemperate words of statesmen and generals can be discounted by skillful diplomacy. But not bullets and death.
The immediate struggle in Germany stems from the effort, planned by political advisers to Marshal Vassily D. Sokolovsky, Soviet Commander in Chief, to starve the people of the three sectors of Berlin occupied by the Western Powers into a state of political submission, so that they will demand withdrawal of the Allied occupation forces as the price of food and the end of the period of economic chaos which the Russians through their control of the utilities will force upon them.
POLITICAL WEAPON
In another era, the idea that one of the most powerful nations in the world would consciously plan and carry out starvation of two and a quarter million people to gain its political ends would have been unthinkable. Nevertheless, that is the brutal truth about what is going on in Berlin.
Conditions in Western sectors of the city are bound to deteriorate daily. The Russians have shut off all food supply to those areas. They gave as an excuse for the blockade introduction of the new currency in the Western zones of occupation and then in the Western sectors of Berlin. But there is no indication that when bilateral currency is circulating in the city, the blockade will be lifted.
It will take all the stamina and courage that Berliners can muster after five years of war and three years of occupation to face these conditions. There are many stouthearted enough to defy the Soviet military administration. But there are many, too, who want an end to discord and want.
But there is a larger struggle for Germany in which the battle of Berlin is only one of a series of political frays, although at the moment it is the most important single battle. This general struggle is the ultimate result of that division of Germany made inevitable by the failure last year of two successive meetings of the Council of Foreign Ministers to find a formula for four-power rule of the Reich and eventual establishment of an all-German Government.
The event which has pushed the Russians headlong into their present offensive is approval by the Western Powers of agreements on the Western German state and control of the Ruhr reached at London early this month. And the single point which has aroused the greatest anger in Moscow is the fact that these agreements remove from the sphere of Soviet influence the Ruhr, richest industrial prize in Europe.
IMPORTANCE OF RUHR
For in contrast to some doubting Thomases in the West, the realists of the Kremlin know that the Ruhr can be made to work as part of a new German state to the extent that it will slowly fulfill its maximum contribution to the reconstruction of Western Europe and a power group that will balance the new Soviet empire to the East.
Loss of any hope of either sharing in this production or in hampering it by their tested political means of disruption so that it cannot be used as it should be used is the mainspring of the present Soviet political offensive in Germany. Hence, emphasis on the Ruhr in the Declaration of Warsaw published by the foreign ministers of the Soviet Union and its satellite countries of the East and the very evident bid within the body of the communiqué for another meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers. At such a meeting Molotov could try once more to win a Russian foothold in Western Germany through establishment of an all-German Government eventually to be dominated by Communists.
What do the Russians want? It is obvious that under any conditions they want the Western powers out of Berlin. But this correspondent believes that the Russians are also seeking, and have been seeking since April, a meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers at which they will make one more attempt to win an all-German Government in some form under the aegis of the four occupying powers.
For in the Russian case half a loaf, Eastern Germany, is not better than none. The Russians want all Germany. And since the Russians think in terms of decades and centuries it is quite possible that Molotov would come to a Foreign Ministers’ conference prepared to make concessions on the structure of an all-German Government in return for knowledge that such a Government would exist ten years from now as a prey to Communist infiltration.
BALANCE OF FORCES
What are the strengths and weaknesses of the two groups in the present struggle for Germany? First and most obvious is the fact that there are three powers in the Western grouping and only one in the Eastern grouping. Soviet policy in Germany has often revealed its inflexibility but it is much easier to carry out one policy than three through one Military Government administration rather than three, no matter how closely they are allied.
But the principal advantage of the Russians is that enjoyed in this sort of struggle by any totalitarian state. The Russians can do as they please in Berlin and their zone within the limits imposed by their present unpreparedness for a long-term war.
The alliance between the Western powers and the democratic parties of Berlin and Germany has closed the ranks to some extent in the face of the new Russian offensive. Yet differences of opinion exist, notably over control of the Ruhr, and during the present stage the Russians are making every effort to capitalize on those differences and widen any splits between the Western powers and the Germans and lessen the effect of this alliance.
The greatest advantage on the side of the Western powers here in Germany, as it has been all through Western Europe, is the combination of economic strength and political tolerance.
JUNE 29, 1948
Marshall Plan Cracks Bloc in East, Washington Holds
By JAMES RESTON
Special to The New York Times.
WASHINGTON, June 28—The general reaction in Washington today to the Communist Information Bureau’s split with Marshal Tito of Yugoslavia was much like the reaction of Winston Churchill to the sudden arrival of Rudolf Hess in Scotland during the war.
“It would appear,” said Mr. Churchill, “that there is a maggot in the apple.”
Officially, the Truman Administration said nothing, but informed persons made these observations:
It is unlikely that there will be any complete break between Belgrade and Moscow. Marshal Tito will either satisfy the will of the Kremlin or be replaced, these sources suggested.
The Marshall Plan has been more of a thunderbolt in Eastern Europe than the United States realized. It has cracked the smooth facade of the Communist world by demonstrating that the interests of the Soviet satellites are not necessarily identical to the interests of the Soviet Union.
These circles said that the Yugoslav crack would undoubtedly be smoothed over but that meanwhile it had confirmed an important fact: that even in Eastern Europe the foundation of communism is not secure and that nationalism is still a force capable of challenging communism.
The cleavage has come at a critical time in the relations between East and West and will stiffen the opposition to the Soviet efforts to drive the United States, Britain and France out of Berlin.
Finally, reliable official reports suggest that the action by the Cominform may be Moscow’s reaction to the recent purge by Marshal Tito of several prominent Communists who opposed what they felt were his half-measures in the organization of the state.
At the end of April, according to these reports, about fifteen Communists who held responsible Government positions were condemned to death or long terms in prison at Ljubljana. Shortly thereafter two Communists who had been active with Marshal Tito in the Partisan fight during the war were arrested.
These diplomatic reports, which also spoke of further purges in the Yugoslav Army, indicated that the reason for the replacement of Sreten Zujovitch and Andrija Helbrang, high Government officia
ls, was that they had opposed a form of economic planning that would leave Yugoslavia free to trade where she liked, rather than to follow the Soviet and Cominform efforts to make every sacrifice to beat the Marshall Plan.
The tendency in the capital is not to make too much now of the Tito incident. What the incident has done, however, is to confirm a belief of the leaders of both parties that the policy of economic and political assistance to Western and Southern Europe, and of stern resistance to Soviet pressure is the right one and is showing results.
DECEMBER 23, 1948
TOJO AND 6 OTHERS HANGED BY ALLIES AS WAR CRIMINALS
Four Japanese Leaders Are Executed Simultaneously In Prison
By LINDESAY PARROTT
Special to The New York Times.
TOKYO, Dec. 23—Hideki Tojo, former dictator of Japan, and six of his most prominent collaborators in the war against the Allied powers, were hanged this morning at Sugamo Prison on the outskirts of Tokyo as criminals against international law. The death sentences against them, imposed by the International Military Tribunal after about two and a half years of trial, were carried out by the United States Eighth Army.
This was announced officially by Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s public information office in a very brief statement handed to waiting correspondents at 1 o’clock this morning. The official announcement said:
“Between 12:01 and 12:35 A.M., Dec. 23, all seven of the war criminals that were condemned by the International Military Tribunal in the Far East were hanged.”
[The seven bodies were taken to the Yokohama crematory in American Army trucks escorted by military police, the United Press reported. Soldiers with fixed bayonets stood in a light drizzle, barring the way to newsmen, as the trucks sped through the gates. The cremations began at 8:10 A.M. in a square stucco building that contains fourteen ovens. An hour and twenty minutes later all had been burned to ashes.]
Those executed were Tojo; former Premier Koki Hirota; Gen. Kenji Doihara, variously called the “Tiger,” the “Terror” and the “Lawrence” of Manchuria; Gen. Iwane Matsui, protagonist of the rape of Nanking; Gen. Akira Muto, chief of staff in Sumatra and then in the Philippines when the captured United States forces were compelled to walk in the Bataan Death March; former War Minister Seishiro Itagaki; and Gen. Hitaro Kimura, former chief of staff in Burma and one of those held most responsible for the maltreatment of war prisoners.
Later, General MacArthur’s public relations office, in what it called “a factual report of the executions,” revealed that there were several witnesses at the executions from nations that shared in the trial.
In addition to “doctors and essential prison personnel,” those present included William J. Sebald, United States member of the Allied council, Gen. Shang Chen for China, Patrick Shaw for the British Commonwealth and Lieut. Gen. Kuzma Derevyanko for the Soviet Union.
It was announced that they had been invited to attend by General MacArthur by a message that said:
“Inasmuch as the execution will carry out the pertinent part of the judgment of the Allied powers represented on the tribunal, I request your attendance thereat as witnesses in order that you may thereafter certify to the execution of that phase of the tribunal’s judgment.”
It was announced that the time of execution had been told to the prisoners two hours in advance and that each had had an interview with the prison’s Buddhist priest, Nobukatsu Hanayama. Then services were held in a specially constructed shrine in the cellblock where the prisoners had lived.
The first to die, it was stated, were Doihara, Matsui, Tojo and Muto, who fell simultaneously from four gallows erected in the death-house. Itagaki, Hirota and Kimura were hanged in the second group. All had black hoods placed over their heads as the trap was sprung, it was stated, and none needed assistance as he walked up the thirteen steps to the gallows.
The ashes of all will be scattered, it was stated. This is to minimize, as much as possible, the chance of the worship of the prisoners’ remains.
It is understood that the others of the Japanese war criminals will remain in Sugamo Prison under guard of United States soldiers as jailers for the eleven Allied nations, at least until a peace treaty is signed or arrangements are made with other powers to remove them elsewhere.
Two of those sentenced to life imprisonment are at present in the United States Army hospital. They are Mitsujiro Umezi, former Chief of the General Staff, and Toshio Shiratori, Ambassador to Rome and signer of the Tripartite Axis pact.
The executions were carried out with the same secrecy with which the Army has surrounded the prisoners since they were sentenced by the international court last Nov. 12 after a trial that opened June 3, 1946. American, British and French correspondents waited for hours in the public relations office for a formal announcement after being told that they would not under any circumstances be permitted to enter Sugamo Prison, from which all unofficial witnesses were excluded.
The date and the time of hangings also had been well concealed. An automobile tour around the prison’s long concrete wall just after the executions revealed nobody at the gates and nobody waiting. The whole district, in fact, one of small shops, and flimsy post-war homes, was asleep.
The Japanese press pledged this morning that General MacArthur’s suggestion that a day of prayer be held nationally after the executions would be observed. The newspaper Asahi said editorially:
“All sects, Buddhists, Christians, Shintoists and others will offer a prayer for peace today and spend a moment of solemn silence.
“Whatever crimes these seven men committed it is a tragedy for the human race to be compelled to carry out such sentences. We must see that this tragedy does not end meaninglessly.
“These prayers for peace must not end after a moment, but should become a milestone for Japan while the Japanese carry out their mission of seeking permanent peace for the world.
“If the Japanese people now fail to reflect on their moral responsibility for the war and the execution of these seven criminals the long trial by the International Tribunal will have gone in vain.”
MARCH 9, 1949
INDO-CHINA ACCORD SIGNED BY BAO DAI
By LANSING WARREN
Special to The New York Times
PARIS, March 8—Letters approving the accord establishing “an independent Viet Nam within the French Commonwealth” were signed at Elysée Palace today by French President Vincent Auriol and the Emperor of Annam, Boa Dai.
Soon after the ceremony the former Emperor announced at a press conference that he would “return to his ancestral soil on April 25” to bring back peace and to establish the democratic institutions of a new government in Indochina.
It was learned that the accord would not become effective until after the former Emperor’s arrival in Indo-China as the result of a formal agreement between the former Emperor and Leon Pignon, French High Commissioner.
This step removes the immediate necessity of submitting the accord to ratification of the French National Assembly and it was asserted that the text of the accord would not be made public until it became effective.
SOCIALISTS ASKED TO CHANGE
Premier Henri Queuille today had leaders of the Socialist party to lunch and tried to get them to lift their opposition to the present policy of the Government in Indo-China. It was understood that the Assembly would be asked to give approval only to an accord changing Cochin-China from a colony to an independent state and giving it an Assembly as a preparatory measure for the setting up of the Viet Nam state combining Cochin-China, Tongking and Annam and providing for cooperation with the states of Cambodia and Laos.
[The Associated Press reported that, under the tentative accord, the three states of Annam, Tongking and Cochin-China could merge, either into a Viet Namese monarchy or a republic.]
The Socialists can with difficulty reverse the position that they took at a party congress early in the year after which General Secretary Guy Mollet wrote to Premier Queuille opposing any acco
rd with Bao Dai and asking for an understanding with dissident leader Ho Chi Minh.
Of Bao Dai, M. Mollet stated, it was learned tonight, that “he enjoys no authority in the country—armed forces of Viet Nam do not obey him.”
BEDS IN CHINA CITED
“Events,” M. Mollet continued, “are moving rapidly in Indo-China. In a few months the so-called Chinese Communist troops may be on the frontier of Viet Nam and offer their military aid, official or unofficial, to the Government of Ho Chi Minh.
“At that moment nothing could save France from disaster and separation from all Indo-China. The Socialist party believes that an accord can still be made with Ho Chi Minh.”
The Socialists now are being asked to reverse this stand to maintain the Government coalition and to at least suspend their opposition to an accord with Bao Dai.
In French quarters the accord was said to define details of a general understanding reached last June in conference with Bao Dai and include every essential provision for the independence formerly asked by Ho Chi Minh. It was understood that the latter condemns the agreement approved here today.
MARCH 11, 1949
CLEAN-UP IS NEAR IN PELOPONNESUS
Greek Army, Winning Villagers to It, Forces Rebel Remnants Into Last Stand in South
By A. C. SEDGWICK
Special to The New York Times
TRIPOLIS, Greece, March 10—Things are looking up in the Peloponnesus. Here in this agricultural center, the capital of Arcadia and the largest inland town on the peninsula, the very faces of the people reflect a change that has taken place since the Greek Army started its major offensive against the Communist-led rebel bands last Christmas week.
Then the guerrillas were increasing their strength in the area. The Army seemed powerless and the people were downcast and sullen. The Communist underground organization, which recruits for the rebels, spies for them and commits acts of sabotage, was growing.
The New York Times Book of World War II, 1939-1945 Page 160