KENNEDY, ADENAUER AND THE MAKING OF THE BERLIN WALL 1958-1961 A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY AND THE COMMITTEE ON GRADUATE STUDIES OF STANFORD UNIVERSITY IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Fabian Rueger May 2011 © 2011 by Fabian Rueger. All Rights Reserved. Re-distributed by Stanford University under license with the author. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution- Noncommercial 3.0 United States License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/us/ This dissertation is online at: http://purl.stanford.edu/fz828cr8749 ii I certify that I have read this dissertation and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequate in scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Norman Naimark, Co-Adviser I certify that I have read this dissertation and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequate in scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. James Sheehan, Co-Adviser I certify that I have read this dissertation and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequate in scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Barton Bernstein Approved for the Stanford University Committee on Graduate Studies. Patricia J. Gumport, Vice Provost Graduate Education This signature page was generated electronically upon submission of this dissertation in electronic format. An original signed hard copy of the signature page is on file in University Archives. iii Abstract Kennedy, Adenauer and the Making of the Berlin Wall, 1958-1961 The Second Berlin Crisis, which began with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrush- chev’s threat to sign a separate peace treaty with East Germany in November 1958, has largely been interpreted by foreign policy historians as a conflict between the su- perpowers, in which the dependent allies - the Federal Republic of Germany and the GDR - had almost no influence on the course of events that led to the erection of the Berlin Wall. This interpretation served the political purposes of the governments involved for most of the Cold War. The Kennedy administration as leading government of the Western world could claim to have successfully managed a difficult crisis; the Adenauer administration and the Ulbricht regime could both point to Washington’s and Moscow’s responsibility for the division of Germany’s capital; and Khrushchev, as leading statesman of the Warsaw pact, could finally deliver on some of his promises made to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. However, recent findings suggest that Ulbricht, not Khrushchev, was the driv- ing force behind the decision to close the East Berlin sector. In the course of the first two years of the Kennedy administration, severe problems arose in West German- American relations. It is time to ask how the West German government’s interactions with the Kennedy administration influenced the course of the crisis. President Eisenhower had seemingly managed to avoid an escalation of the Berlin crisis from 1958 to late 1960. This came at the cost of increasing pressure for his successor to find a solution. Ten months into the Kennedy administration, Berlin was divided by a wall, and American and Soviet tanks faced each other at Checkpoint Charlie. This dissertation reexamines the interactions between the Western govern- ments, in particular between West Germany and the United States during the Second Berlin Crisis, and shows how these affected the outcome of the crisis. The first chapter iv serves as an introduction to the historiography of the Berlin Crisis and German- American relations in the period, especially between the Kennedy and Adenauer gov- ernments, and defines the pertinent questions; the second chapter provides an outline of the first two years of the crisis and the Eisenhower administration’s approach to Adenauer and Berlin, especially as to Western policy on Berlin when the Eisenhower administration handed over the reins; the third to fifth chapters trace the Kennedy ad- ministration’s and Chancellor Adenauer‘s interactions during the crisis in 1961 with particular regard to the actual sealing off of West Berlin, and the last chapter finally serves as an overview of the immediate aftermath. I argue that four key assumptions about the Berlin Wall crisis in 1961 can no longer be upheld: • The claim that Kennedy had stood firm on Berlin and merely continued the Eisenhower posture on Berlin is wrong. Instead, the Kennedy administra- tion attempted to find new approaches to Berlin and Germany in line with its general revision of US foreign policy. • The notion that the closing of the sector border came as a surprise is not supported by the documents. President Kennedy had been informed nu- merous times that a closing of the sector border could be expected within the year. • Adenauer’s policy to prevent diplomatic recognition of the GDR contrib- uted to an escalation of Washington’s search for alternative policy options, rather than slowing them. The West German election campaign in 1961 further limited the chancellor’s willingness to make changes to his foreign policy. The Kennedy administration eventually sought accommodation with Khrushchev without consulting Bonn. • Inherent conceptual mistakes in Kennedy’s early foreign policy agenda ex- acerbated the crisis, rather than contributed to its eventual solution. An ad- ditional lack of trust between West Germany and the United States compli- cated and delayed the attempt to find a more coherent, unified Western ap- proach. v All four Western governments anticipated an end to the refugee flow through West Berlin as the first step in a crisis escalation, while developing no contingency plans for this step. The lack of any political intention to prevent the expected stop of the refugee flow became the casting mould for Ulbricht’s plan to close the sector bor- der, a plan Khrushchev eventually made his own. By leaving Ulbricht and Khrushchev with only one option, Western policies on Berlin and Germany unwillingly conspired to force East Germany to face its systemic flaws in the summer of 1961. vi Acknowledgements Victory has a hundred fathers, but defeat is an orphan. President Kennedy after the Bay of Pigs, April 21, 1961 This dissertation would not have been possible without my personal and intellectual support brigade, who pressed on when I faltered: Uncle Christoph, without whom I would have never started, My parents, Carola and Christoph, without whom I would have never dared, Jim Sheehan, for guidance through the fog of war, Bart Bernstein, for a casual “Do Berlin!” in the hallway, Hope Harrison, for encouragement when it was least expected, and most importantly, My wife Jill, for taking a very long tour with me. vii Table of Contents Introduction ............................................................................................................. 1 Historiography of West German-American relations in the Berlin Wall Crisis ..... 8 Eisenhower, Adenauer, Khrushchev and the Berlin Conundrum, 1957-1960 ...... 28 The Old Man and the Atlantic: Adenauer and the early Kennedy administration.......................................................................... 66 From the Bay of Pigs to Vienna .......................................................................... 134 From Vienna to the Wall ..................................................................................... 167 Aftermath............................................................................................................. 235 Conclusion........................................................................................................... 252 Key to Archives and Source Collections used .................................................... 259 Bibliography........................................................................................................ 260 viii Introduction On August 13, 1961, Berliners watched in shock as East German police con- struction crews, closely guarded by nearby East German border guards, constructed a barbed wire fence around the city of West Berlin and then, on August 15, began re- placing this preliminary fence with bricks and mortar. West Berlin had thus not only been quickly sealed off from its surrounding East German countryside and its Eastern half; the construction of a permanent divisive structure had begun what would soon be known globally simply as the Berlin Wall. The Wall became such a symbol for the clash between Communism and the Western world that the footage of its opening in 1989 has become generally accepted as the iconic image for the end of the Cold War. As the Berliners watched the construction of the Wall in agony, crowds gath- ered, asking why their sworn protectors, the Western allied governments, did not in- tervene. The right of the Berliners to move freely within their own city was implied in the allied agreement on Berlin and Germany. “The West does nothing!!!” screamed West Berlin’s Bild tabloid in a front-page headline, equally inciting and expressing Berliners’ rage at their helplessness.1 To the public, it seemed as if the White House and the other Western govern- ments, including West Germany’s, were silently resigned to accept this sudden breach of the agreement on Berlin by the East German government. While the Second Berlin Crisis that had begun with Nikita Khrushchev’s threats against West Berlin in 1958 was not immediately over after the construction of the Wall, and kept flaring up spo- radically from 1962 into 1963,