Nine Gates (East Berlin) That Add to the Mystery – Folha de S. Paulo, April 16, 1972
by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira
The question of communism versus anticommunism lies at the heart of contemporary controversies. Therefore, the media should widely disseminate information that can enlighten the world about the dramatic alternative it faces. Unfortunately, the opposite is often true. The only thing that profits from this is the cause of error, namely, communism.
This reflection struck me with particular force while reading news about the opening of East Berlin to visitors from the western sector during Holy Week and Easter.
From an emotional perspective, the fact could not be more striking. A large capital city cut in two by a steel wall. On the eastern side, mystery: no one enters, no one leaves. From time to time, someone jumps out of the mystery box in terror, choosing to face the most serious risks — even death — rather than remain there. At the same time, multifaceted, insistent, cynical worldwide propaganda maintains that the regime in power in this mystery box is capable of transforming any country into an earthly paradise. As can be seen, the contradiction between the facts and the propaganda is palpable. Why, on the one hand, so much mystery to hide this “paradise,” while putting out so much propaganda to persuade people that it is truly paradisical? If that is the case, why do so many people want to leave it, even at such high risk? If not, how can we explain why so many people seek to extend its governing institutions to the whole world? The answers to these questions would be of the utmost interest in the context of the communism-anticommunism controversy.
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Obviously, crossing the Iron Curtain, visiting East Berlin extensively, and verifying in person the authenticity or inauthenticity of this paradise would be an invaluable means of providing adequate answers to many of these problems.
For this very reason, I am convinced that millions of readers around the world eagerly awaited the German media’s reports on what West Berliners would say after returning from their visits to East Berlin. I am also convinced that the media would quickly disseminate whatever they heard from the hundreds of thousands of visitors.
Hundreds of thousands? Information on this subject is sketchy. On the day the wall was opened, telegrams reported that 500,000 visitors would be granted access through nine gates in the Iron Curtain.
Half a million… That’s a lot of people! Given such a high number, those nine gates inevitably raised questions. How wide would those gates have to be to allow such a huge flow of people to pass through? Since all passers-by had to present written authorization to the communist security services, minor border incidents were inevitable. Any delay would create huge queues. Naturally, the usually meticulous German should satisfy the public’s legitimate curiosity about the famous nine gates by explaining their width, the number of car lanes, pedestrian sidewalks, and guard posts each contains.
Another detail: was there a gate that provided access to the subway? In any case, how many trains ran between the two Berlins during those days? How did the communists monitor subway riders?
On all this, silence…
Regarding the number of visitors, the news reports began to waver. On the day the nine gates opened, one report said 500,000. During the visiting days, news reports mentioned “thousands.” What does that mean? This vague expression can refer to hundreds of thousands, tens of thousands, or simply two thousand. Why are the news reports so vague?
Because the Berlin Wall’s temporary opening was merely a Soviet propaganda ploy to facilitate the West German Parliament’s ratification of the Moscow Treaty, it was clearly in the communists’ interest to report a high number of visitors and to conceal the low actual number. This ambiguity may therefore have favored communist interests.
On the 11th, East Berlin published a statement saying that 449,597 West Berliners had crossed the Iron Curtain. But who can believe in the objectivity of the communists when they speak in their own interest?
Until better data becomes available, the whole issue remains in the dark.
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In any case, “thousands” of visitors were in East Berlin. That number should typically include many reporters. Even if the communist rulers had banned reporters from visiting, many visitors, whether paid or not, could have easily gathered data for extensive reports that met journalistic standards. Apparently, none of this was done, as practically nothing appeared in the news. If so, what is the cause of this unusual omission?
The West Berlin press and broadcast media could at least have interviewed a sample of the crowds returning from the eastern sector. What an inexhaustible source of exciting information and invaluable data from psychological, political, and technical perspectives! Yet apparently none of this was done. The telegraph agencies said nothing or almost nothing about it to the world. Once again, why this singular omission?
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Here is a final question worth asking: Should the propaganda visit organized by the East Berlin communists be taken seriously? If the German communist rulers’ intention in opening the nine gates was to facilitate a cordial meeting between communist and non-communist Germany, why did they not allow Germans from the eastern sector to travel freely to West Berlin? Evidently, they feared they would not want to return. In that case, is communist Germany really a paradise? Or is it a prison? Why, then, does the UN, so nosy when it comes to supporting anti-colonialist movements, not look into the matter to determine whether East Germany has been reduced to a mere colony?
As can be seen, the opening of the nine gates did not reveal any mystery. It only made the mystery even thicker, thanks to the German media’s laconic nature. I assume this laconicism because I can think of no other explanation for the scarcity of information in the Brazilian press.
