Focus On Berlin (1961)

[Music] Photography sees with the eye of the camera. It makes records of people, [Music] places, and events. Photography shows, shows how things happen. It lets you see the world about you right here in your classroom. It is your window on the world. Now, Kodak through photography brings you this edition of the Screen News Digest. [Music] 1939. Adolf Hitler is chancellor of Nazi Germany and Berlin is the capital and showplace of the Third Reich. The empire the Furer says will endure for a thousand years. [Music] For Adolf Hitler, 1939 is the end and the beginning. The end of the Furer's unchallenged expansion of the Third Reich, the march into the Rhineland, the Anlus with Austria, the annexation of the Sudatan land, and the occupation of Czechoslovakia. And now in September 1939, the beginning of World War II. Germany invades Poland and Europe goes to [Applause] war. Adolf Hitler's dream of conquest is transformed into a fiery nightmare for his country, his people, and his beloved Berlin. And in 1945, the jaws of a giant vice clamp shut on the German capital. Russian troops close in from the east, and Allied forces advance from the west. The Nazi army is in full retreat. May 8th, the war ends, and ever so briefly, American and Russian soldiers meet as allies and friends. German field marshal Kitle surrenders Berlin. The city has been captured by the Red Army under General Zukov while US troops, according to a strategic plan, waited 75 mi away. The Allies and Russians agree on a joint administration of Berlin pending a post-war [Music] settlement. In July 1945, President Truman and Prime Minister Churchill meet at Potdam with Premier Stalin to partition Germany and settle the terms of its [Music] occupation. During the conference, Clement Atley replaces Winston Churchill when the Labour Party is victorious in a national parliamentary election. [Music] The big three agree at Potdam to divide Germany. The Allies occupying what is today West Germany and the Russians East [Music] Germany. 110 mi inside the Soviet zone, Berlin is placed under US, British, French, and Russian control. But the Western powers neglect to get unlimited access to and from the city through Soviet occupied East Germany. Then it begins. A river of refugees making a choice between communist East Germany and Allied West Germany. Traveling any way they can. Long hours, endless days on trains that are pitifully slow and unbelievably crowded. They return to a skeleton city. 85% of Berlin's buildings have been destroyed or damaged. [Music] The thousand-year Reich is dead after 12 years, 4 months, 8 days. And now a new nation, a new future must be built out of the ruins of our ravaged cities. The task seems hopeless and yet it is not. As days, months, and years pass, the reconstruction of West Berlin becomes a testimony to the energy of a determined people. [Applause] In these difficult times, the people of West Berlin develop a tenacity and independence that will be tested many times in many crises during the years [Music] ahead. Overnight, or so it seems, new buildings spring up. And by 1948, West Berlin and its 2 and a half million inhabitants are caught up in a surging post-war prosperity. In the Soviet sector of the island city, there is increasing embarrass Soviet leaders cannot hide the pitiful pace of communist [Music] reconstruction. Suddenly the reds react, blockading all land traffic to and from Berlin. The date, April 1st, 1948. The Allies respond with a massive airlift of food and [Music] supplies. Planes land at 3minute intervals around the clock, and more than 2 million tons of cargo are flown into the city. The Allies will not be starved out of Berlin. And after 18 months, the blockade is lifted. In September 1949, traffic again rolls over the Autoban, the highway through the Soviet zone that links West Germany with West [Music] Berlin. The crisis is passed, but the issue is not settled. Walter Ulrich, premier of East Germany, and Nikita Kushchoff, Russia's red leader, continue to provoke incidents and issue inflammatory statements. Kushchoff calls West Berlin a sore tooth, a dangerous cancer, a bone in my throat. The Soviet premier demands that the allies evacuate West Berlin and make it a demilitarized free city at the mercy of the communist East German regime. Meanwhile, West Berlin is producing 25% more industrial goods than it did in 1936 and exporting 10 times as much as it did before the Soviet blockade. In June 1953, unrest in East Berlin erupts into a workers's revolt. Stones are hurled against tanks in a courageous but hopeless demonstration of [Music] defiance. 50,000 persons take part in the uprisings that spread from East Berlin to other parts of East Germany. Hundreds die before the revolt is crushed. Many who live flee. Upwards of 2,000 refugees a day cross from east into West Berlin. And by 1960, the postwar total reaches 3 million persons. Once again, the communist regime cracks down. This time, digging up streets between East and West Berlin, setting up barricades and barbed wire to halt the exodus to freedom. The barriers are in direct violation of international agreements providing free passage between the two sectors of the island city. But the increased security and strengthened barricades still cannot halt the flight to freedom. Refugees, old and young, men and women, boys and girls, find the will and the way to cross into West Berlin. [Applause] [Music] The communists accelerate their efforts to seal off East Berlin, to build a wall to keep their people captive. Loved ones in West and East Berlin, separated by the wall, must remain on opposite sides of the border to wave to each other, to watch, and to weep. The wall of shame becomes the symbol of the ideological division of a city, a country and our world. President John F. Kennedy gives eloquent expression to that division when he comes to West Berlin in June 1963. Thank you. There are many people in the world who really don't understand or say they don't what is the great issue between the free world and the communist world. Let them come to Berlin. Freedom is indivisible and when one man is enslaved all are not free. All all free men wherever they may live are citizens of Berlin. And therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words [Music] binina. In the five years that follow, the communists consent from time to time to allow brief periods of free passage between East and West [Music] Berlin. The reunions only serve to spell out in human terms the tragedy of the divided city a quarter of a century after the end of World War II. Industrially, West Berlin continues to grow and prosper. Its plants produce at peak capacity, and its goods are exported and sold around the world. [Music] In 1969, President Nixon on his tour of Western Europe flies to the island city to tell its people of America's continued support. No one, the president says, should doubt the determination of the United States to live up to its obligations in West Berlin. Within a week, another East West confrontation takes place. West Germany announces the election of a new president will be held in West Berlin. In retaliation, communist border guards close the Ottban for varying periods of time. There are threats and harassment, warnings and attempted intimidation, but after delays and minor incidents, the roadway is open and traffic is allowed to proceed into and out of the city. And the West German presidential election is held as scheduled with more than a thousand delegates coming to West Berlin to cast their [Music] ballots. Billy Brunt, former mayor of West Berlin, is present along with Cortisinger, West Germany's chancellor. A simple majority is needed for election, but three ballots must be taken before the federal electors decide on a successor to retiring President Hinrich Lupa. In as dramatic an election as postwar Berlin has seen, Justice Minister Gustaf Heinman is chosen to become West Germany's third president. The island city has passed through another perilous time. Living as it has lived for 30 years, day to day, month to month, crisis to crisis. The problems of the past remain unresolved. The dangers of the present continue unending at the city, the place, the border where west meets east. Freedom faces communism and the world watches, waits, and hopes. The Screen News Digest, living history in the classroom, has been brought to you by the Eastman Kodak Company.