Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Volume XV, Germany and Berlin

169. Memorandum of Conversation¹

US/MC/#2

New York, September 19, 1966, 3:30 p.m.

SECRETARY’S DELEGATION TO THE TWENTY-FIRST SESSION OF THE UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY

New York, September–October 1966

SUBJECT

• All-German Affairs

PARTICIPANTS

• The Secretary
• Mr. William Krimer
• Mr. Bertus Wabeke
• H.E. Dr. Erich Mende, German Vice Chancellor and Minister of All German Affairs
• H.E. Baron Sigismund von Braun, Permanent Observer to the U.N.
• Consul General Klaus Curtius, N.Y.
• Dr. Guido Brunner, First Secretary of German Observer Mission
• K.F. Brotesser, Personal Aide to Dr. Mende

After an exchange of amenities the Secretary opened the substantive part of the conversation by asking what the top questions were in Germany today. In response Dr. Mende consciously limited himself to the area of East-West German relations in order not to anticipate the discussions which Chancellor Erhard is to have in Washington later on in the month. Dr. Mende spoke at length about the shooting along the Berlin Wall, the arrest of West Germans on the Autobahn to Berlin and the failure of West German attempts to improve communications with the East Zone. He fears that worse is still to come and expects that the East Zone will require West Germans to accept East German visas this coming Christmas. Dr. Mende links the increased aggressiveness of the East Zone authorities in part to the war in Viet-Nam. Germany and the U.S. are being attacked together as disturbers of the peace. Under questioning from the Secretary, Dr. Mende conceded, however, that the increase in shooting by East German border guards is related to an increase in the number of flights from East Germany. Furthermore, the Zone authorities are still willing to release prisoners—even those serving life terms—for needed commodities such as chemical products, machines, drugs and coffee.

Dr. Mende also acknowledged that West Germany’s difficulties are limited to the East Zone and to a lesser extent to Moscow. Relations with East European Soviet satellites have greatly improved. With Rumania relations are very good. Those with Hungary and Czechoslovakia are also good in many respects. Those with Bulgaria are less satisfactory but still not bad. Poland is more difficult but here too on the people-to-people level things are improving. Dr. Mende related that General de Gaulle had even been very optimistic regarding future German relations with Soviet Russia during his visit to Bonn. But in his own conversations with Tsarapkin, Dr. Mende had not received any such encouragement.

In response to a question from the Secretary, Dr. Mende ventured the opinion Gromyko may well raise the question of the continuation of the Spandau prison regime or protest the meetings of Bundestag committees in West Berlin in his conversations with the Secretary. But even if he doesn’t raise the Berlin issue, according to Dr. Mende it would be useful if the Secretary were to ask Gromyko what is going on and why there should be so much shooting in Berlin. The Secretary agreed to inform the Germans immediately if Gromyko were to indicate that Moscow intended to divert attention from Viet-Nam by focusing on Germany.

Dr. Mende also referred to the efforts of the Ulbricht regime to obtain representation at the U.N. He warned that for the East Germans to get an observer accredited would have an enormously disturbing effect upon public opinion in West Germany and elsewhere, since it would tend to give equal status to East and West Germany. Dr. Mende explained that in order to combat the efforts by Ulbricht to make himself acceptable at the U.N., the West German Government was transmitting individual copies of a documentary report on the violation of human rights in East Germany to the ambassadors of all U.N. member nations.

In response to questions from the Secretary, Dr. Mende also spoke at some length about the increase in the number of flights from East Germany over the past few months. According to Dr. Mende, flights have doubled every week since April, and the flight attempts have become more dramatic, more desperate, more courageous. Dr. Mende attributes this phenomenon less to dissatisfaction with physical conditions in the Zone than with the lack of rights and freedoms by comparison with neighboring East European countries. Dr. Mende meets every three months with these escapees and has offered to make available to the Secretary the reports of these meetings. The Secretary stated in reply that he would very much like to see these reports.

1. Source: Department of State, Conference Files: Lot 67 D 586, CF 83. Confidential. No indication of drafting officer is on the source text, which was approved in S on September 23. The meeting was held in the Secretary’s suite at the Waldorf Towers.