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GDR Council of Ministers’ Decision to Seal the Border (August 12, 1961)

In order to stop the seemingly incessant flood of East Germans leaving to resettle in the West, the GDR government, with the approval of the Soviet Union, decided to seal the last gap in the inner-German border. In doing so, it sought to stabilize its regime both politically and economically at the risk of deepening the division of Germany.

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RESOLUTION of the Council of Ministers of the German Democratic Republic


On the basis of the declaration of the member states of the Warsaw Pact and the resolution of the Volkskammer [People's Parliament], the Council of Ministers of the German Democratic Republic has come to the following conclusion:

The preservation of peace calls for putting a stop to the activities of West German revanchists and militarists and opening the path for the securing of peace and the rebirth of Germany as a peace-loving, anti-imperialist, neutral state through the conclusion of a German peace treaty. The Bonn government’s position that the Second World War has not yet come to an end is tantamount to the demand for a free hand for militaristic provocations and civil war-type measures. This imperialistic policy, which is conducted under the guise of anti-Communism, is the continuation of the aggressive goals of fascist German imperialism in the time of the Third Reich. From the defeat of Hitler's Germany in the Second World War, the Bonn government has concluded that the rapacious politics of German monopoly capitalism and its Hitler-generals should be given one more try – by renouncing a national policy for Germany and transforming West Germany into a NATO state, a satellite state of the USA.

The renewed threat posed by German militarism to the German people and to the peoples of Europe could lead to acute danger, since the fundamental provisions of the Potsdam Agreement on eradicating militarism and Nazism continue to be broken in the West German Federal Republic and in the frontline city of West Berlin.

In West Germany an intensification of revanchist policies, together with escalating territorial demands vis-à-vis the German Democratic Republic and Germany's neighboring states, is being carried out; this is closely linked with the West German Federal Armed Forces' accelerated buildup of arms and nuclear armament. A systematic preparation for civil war against the German Democratic Republic is being pursued by the Adenauer government. Citizens of the German Democratic Republic who visit West Germany are increasingly subjected to terrorist persecution. Agents headquartered in West Germany and West Berlin are organizing the systematic recruitment of citizens of the German Democratic Republic and a proper human slave trade.

As may be gathered from official government documents and declaration of principles of the party leadership of the CDU/CSU, this aggressive policy and agitation aims to incorporate all of Germany into NATO's Western military bloc and to extend the military regime in the Federal Republic to the German Democratic Republic. The West German militarists want to use all possible deceptive maneuvers, such as e.g. "free elections," to initially extend their military base as far as the Oder, in order to then commence the big war.

The West German revanchists and militarists abuse the peace policy of the USSR and the Warsaw Pact states in the German question, so that – through hostile agitation, recruitment, and diversionary tactics – they can inflict damage not only on the German Democratic Republic, but on the other states in the socialist camp as well.

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