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Werner David went home from the Agfa plant that night to a meal of potato and carrots. Behind locked doors, he tuned his radio to West Berlin's U.S.-operated radio RIAS and heard about the Berlin protest march. It happened almost the same way at Wolfgang Fritsch's house. As he and his wife switched off the radio and went to bed, he muttered: "It's happened. It's happened." Next morning, at the Agfa plant, the uranium pits, the dockworks at Rostock, the heavy-machinery works in Magdeburg, at the center of Red Berlin, all across the country, the hatred and yearning exploded into the bloody rebellion of June 17.
For 48 hours, Walter Ulbricht's great edifice seemed about to tumble about his ears. His vaunted party, and his heavy-booted Vopos, could not put down the rebellion; the Soviet army had to do it for him. The revolters had cried for many things, but above all they cried for the downfall of Walter Ulbricht: "Down with Spitzbart [pointed beard]!" "Down with the Ulbricht regime!" In the streets of East Berlin, he was burned in effigy.
As coldly, as tenaciously as always, Walter Ulbricht held on. It was all the work of Western provocateurs, said his propaganda machines—and the Soviet firing squads shot a few workers to prove it. The Reds also, by their own official admission, jailed 50,000 people. But in a slip of the tongue, Ulbricht contradicted himself on Western responsibility for the riots. "It is only a family quarrel," said he, "of no concern to the West."
For the time being at least, Walter Ulbricht still reigned in Moscow's name. From meeting hall to city square to factory, he toured his simmering satrapy, to soothe grim-faced workers with promises and lash frightened party workers with threats. The Vopos clustered about him, and the Soviet army lay only a soft shout away. He had not changed. He was still the coffinmaker.