Berlin and the German Problem

In: World politics: a quarterly journal of international relations, Volume 16, Issue 1, p. 137-146

Abstract

The acute phase of the Berlin crisis appears to be past. It began with the Soviet "ultimatum" of November 17,1958, and petered out in the aftermath of the showdown over Cuba. But though there are many indications that for some time a renewal of the threatening pressure on Berlin—West Berlin, to be precise—need not be expected, there can be no assurance that the situation will not blow up in our faces at any moment any day, as the death of Peter Fechter at the Wall in August 1962 illustrated. Also, we are as far as ever from a real solution for the admittedly abnormal situation of this city. And it still remains an open question whether, with the passage of time, acceptance and adjustment to the brutal abnormality of the Wall and the division of Germany will win out over growing frustration and the explosive and dangerous consequences of disappointed hopes for unification and liberation. Thus Berlin is likely to remain indefinitely both a thermometer indicating the temperature of the Cold War and a time-bomb that resists defusing.