Ultimatum of Khrouchtchev

The expression “ Ultimatum of Khrouchtchev ” is used to indicate one of the most serious political crises of the history of Berlin during the Cold war.

Origin

The fate of the Nazi Germany was decided by the allies at the time of the Conférence of Yalta and the Conférence of Potsdam in particular.

“ Germany, inside its borders of 1937, will be for the needs for the occcupation divided into three, which each one will be allotted to the one of the three powers and a special area of Berlin which will be placed under the joint occupation of the three powers. ”

Unfolding

During the autumn 1958, several political officials of the Soviet block (Walter Ulbricht, Krouchtchev, Gomulka) called publicly and on several occasions the statute of Berlin in question. In unison, the European communist press started in its turn a campaign in this direction.

The November 27th 1958, the general secretary of the Soviet Communist party Nikita Khrouchtchev sent a note of 9600 words to the three Western occupants (the the United States, the the United Kingdom and the France), as with the government of the German Federal republic in which he proposed to repeal the quadripartite statute of the old capital of Reich and to transform Berlin into a “ free city ” demilitarized, equipped with a clean government guaranteed by the four ex-occupying powers, GDR, the FRG, even UNO. What implied that all the allied troops are withdrawn from the city. This new “State” would have maintained the privileged relations with GDR and the the USSR, in particular in “ prohibiting any subversive activity ” against GDR and by increasing its trade with the Soviet Union.

According to Krouchtchev, the partition of Berlin had become anachronistic and did not justify itself any more. The Western presence in Berlin had become illegitimate, in particular following the creation of the German Federal republic, especially after the authorization of the rearmament of FRG (Accords of Paris in 1955). In a press conference which it holds the same day with the the Kremlin, Krouchtchev does not hesitate to qualify West Berlin “ species of cancerous tumor ” on which it proposes a “ surgical operation ”. It raises however that its step is not a Ultimatum.

The manifest ulterior motive of this proposal was to completely integrate the city in the Soviet field of influence. The drafting was relatively ambiguous, but it resembled a diktat more with a simple proposal: Krouchtchev granted for example only six months to the Westerners to start “negotiations”.

Krouchtchev was however particularly threatening while adding: “ Seuls of insane could go until starting another war to defend the privilege to occupy West Berlin ”. Two days after the ultimatum of Krouchtchev, Walter Ulbricht declared that he would regard new a airlift as a military threat directed against GDR.

The reaction of the three western powers, the German government and the mayor in exercise of West Berlin Willy Brandt was also solved. The Americans took note of the note by denouncing its unilateral character and marked their presence in Berlin openly. December 7th, took place of the municipal elections in West Berlin. The socialist mayor Willy Brandt and the chancellor Christian-Democrat Konrad Adenauer made countryside together to beat the Communists.

December 31st of the same year, the western powers sent a formal answer common to the proposal refuting the legal sales leaflet of Krouchtchev, reaffirming of their right to be in Berlin and charging the responsibility for the crisis to the USSR, but informing of their opening to negotiations relating to the whole of Germany.

At the end of the six months, the ultimatum ended without tangible result.

One can allot the fact that the crisis did not lead to a climbing, with the very firm and measured reaction of Willy Brandt, of Konrad Adenauer and allied powers. But it is probable that the failure of this crisis did not have nothing to do with decision to build the Berlin Wall in August 1961.

Objectives

The acceptance of the proposal by the Westerners would have represented a considerable backing: only sectors of West Berlin being concerned. The objectives of Khrouchtchev were probably multiple:

to seize without blow to férir total control on Berlin by a blackmail with the war. The conventional forces were indeed with the advantage of the Soviets and the threat of a highly improbable atomic response.
in the long term to remove the “capitalist canker” which West Berlin represented;
to clog the breach by which GDR continued to know an important loss (the emigration towards the West being done then almost only by Berlin).
to devote German division by accentuating East-West cleavage.
to test the Westerners while trying to sow the discord in NATO.

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