CHRISTMAS PERMITS FOR WEST BERLINERS TO VISIT EAST BERLIN.

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79T00429A001200060007-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 12, 2005
• Sequence Number: 7
• Publication Date: December 7, 1963
• Content Type: IM

Approved Forease 2005/09.&C r P79T00421200060007-4
F77 I
OCI No. 2480/63
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
Office of Current Intelligence
7 December 1963
CURRENT INTELLIGENCE MEMORANDUM
SUBJECT: Christmas Permits for West Berliners to
Visit East Berlin.
1. The Ulbricht regime long has been pressing
the West Berlin Senat to authorize talks between
Governing Mayor Brandt or his representative and a
top-level East German official, with a view to se-
curing implied Senat recognition of the GDR's "sov-
ereignty" underlining the GDR's claim that West
Berlin has a "special" status and weakening its
ties with the Federal Republic. The Ulbricht re-.
gime-now.is:seeking to use the possibility of
Christmas visits for West Berliners with their re-
latives in East Berlin to put additional pressure
on the Senat for talks.
2. On 5 December the Senat received a letter
from GDR Deputy Premier Alexander Abusch, offering
to establish machinery by which West Berliners
could secure GDR permits to visit the Soviet sector
during the holiday season (15 December-5 January).
Abusch, however, attached conditions which are well
known to be unacceptable to the West Berlin Senat
and the three Western Powers. The letter states
that the GDR is prepared to establish issuing facil-
ities in West Berlin, where West Berlin citizens
could receive permits for visits to "the capital of
the GDR" during the period and expresses the hope
that Brandt "deems it necessary to discuss imple-
mentation of the measure" with Abusch, either in
East or West Berlin.
3. The Senat two years ago ejected East Ger-
man permit offices which were being set up in West
Berlin, and obtained an order from the Allied Kom-
mandatura forbidding the establishment or operation
of such offices. Apart from this the Senat has
State Department review completed
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firmly resisted offers for talks with GDR repre-
sentatives at any level which would imply West Ber-
lin's recognition of the Ulbricht regime. Mayor
Brandt, however, has indicated that he would be
agreeable to talks with an official of the East
Berlin municipal government even though he also be-
longs to the GDR government, but provided it was
clear that this individual was acting only within
his capacity as an East Berlin official.
4. The present East German maneuver neverthe-
less places the West Berlin Senat in a difficult
position. The Senat and the West German government
have been trying for a deal whereby Bonn would give
the GDR badly needed financial aid in return for a
concession on visits by West Berliners to the Soviet
sector. Various moves either through interzonal
trade channels or other levels to reach such an
agreement, however, have been blocked by the GDR's
insistence that any concession be in return for
some form of recognition of East German "sovereignty."
5. On 30 November, West German Minister for
All German Affairs Erich Mende renewed Bonn's offer
of a loan, spelling out among the four conditions
the demand that West Berliners receive the right
to visit friends and relatives in East Berlin, "just
as citizens of the Federal Republic do." East Ger-
man media immediately stigmatized the offer as an
insult to East German "sovereignty." Soviet Ambas-
sador Abrasimov took up the matter with Ambassador
McGhee in their 4 December talk in West Berlin,
sharply criticizing the conditions of Mende's offer.
When McGhee remarked that travel seemed a basic
human right, Abrasimo suggested that the Allies
urge Brandt to negotiate the question of internal
Berlin travel with the East German government.
6. In this situation, the Senat officials ap-
parently feel they cannot afford to leave the Abusch
letter unanswered and have asked Bonn for immediate
guidance. Meanwhile, in the absence of Brandt and
his deputy Albertz, Senat officials are considering
an unsigned and unaddressed aide memoire expressing
regret that the East German offer is limited in time
and declaring that permit-issuing facilities would
be acceptable only if the operation did not constitute
an exercise of GDR sovereignty on West Berlin's terri-
tory.
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