WORKERS 'UPRISING
Death of Stalin (5 brand 1953) it sparked hopes that the fate of Berlin would be alleviated, but they were soon dispelled. In the eastern sector, the communists inadvertently stirred up smoldering unrest by introducing 16 June 10% increase in production standards. For the workers, the demand is already in the sweat of the forehead of those who earn to support the family, to produce more, and earning less was unbearable. Construction workers from the block of flats protested first 40 the prestigious Stalinallee. who folded their tools and marched into the city center, picking up many other workers and passers-by along the way. On Strausberger Platz, they swept the Volkspolizei units that tried to stop them and came through Alexanderplatz to Unter den Linden. Hence counting more or less 8000 people, the demonstration marched to the building of government ministries in the former Goringa Aviation Ministry on Lepzigerstrasse. where they demanded to speak with the head of the SED Walter Ulbricht and Prime Minister Otto Grotewohl, none of which, however, appeared. In the end, three less important ministers were sent to the demonstrators. Undoubtedly alarmed by the scale of the demonstrations, the ministers promised to attempt to lower production standards. But now the crowd wanted more and there were demands for political freedom. After announcing a general strike the next day, the protesters returned to Stalinallee, tearing off SED posters along the way. The announcement made the same day by Grotewohl to abolish the new production standards did not stop the strike, which was reported by Western radio stations throughout the GDR. About 300.000 workers in 250 cities joined the strike and Fr. 7.00 a crowd of one hundred thousand marched through East Berlin to the ministry building.
Ulbricht and Grotewohl feared for their own skin and called for Soviet help. When Soviet tanks appeared on Lepizigerstrasse in the morning, their route was blocked by an unmoved crowd of people. Soviet commander, General Paweł Dybrowa, he warned over the loudspeakers, that martial law has been imposed and those offenders are threatened with a court martial, but the effects of his occurrence were negligible. Dubrov ordered his troops to press forward with tanks in reserve, and at that moment the first shots were fired.
The crowd dispersed at the sound of the first bullets, only the appendages remained, attacking tanks with bricks and bottles. Street fighting raged throughout Berlin for the rest of the day, and it was only after dark that the Soviets regained communist control of the city.
Death was killed to say the least 267 demonstrators, 116 militiamen and 18 Soviet soldiers, is also calculated, that they were shot without trial during the post-uprising repression 92 civilians (including one passerby from West Berlin). The Western Powers did nothing, to prevent executions, as well as the subsequent trials of the "counter-revolutionaries."”, during which there were fourteen death sentences and countless prison sentences - that was the final confirmation, that Berlin is divided.
Bertolt Brecht, which in 1949 He returned to Berlin and decided to live in the eastern part of the city, summed up this episode in a poem titled "The Solution”:
After the uprising 17 June
Sectetarian of the Writers' Union
He had leaflets handed out to Stalinallee
From which you could read, that nation
He lost the government's trust
And he could only get them back
Having redoubled our efforts. Is it then
It wouldn't be easier, if the government
He dissolved the nation
And he chose a new one?
For the remainder of the 1950s, Berlin was relatively quiet, but important events took place in West Germany under Chancellor Konrad Adenaur. The most important of them was the so-called. "An economic miracle”, thanks to which West Germany recovered from the damage of war, to become the strongest economy in Europe, which had a positive impact on the fate of West Berlin. On the political front, the doctrine of non-recognition of the GDR Hallstein was dominant. This was extended to breaking diplomatic ties with countries, which recognized the GDR. A pragmatic exception was made for the Soviet Union.