Like doomed men in a death cell, the puppet rulers of Communist East Germany had waited for weeks, desperate to know which of them had been named for sacrifice. Last week one of them (perhaps only the first) found out. An eight-line announcement in East Berlin's Neues Deutschland said: "State Security Forces . . . arrested Georg Dertinger, Foreign Minister." Dertinger was accused of "hostile activity against the German Democratic Republic . . . carried out under orders from imperialist spy services."
Dertinger is not likely to stir up much sympathy. A Prussian cadet, then a newspaperman, he became a jackbooted member...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In
