Word: east
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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When Warsaw Pact tanks rolled into Czechoslovakia last August, dissent erupted in a most unlikely place: Walter Ulbricht's rigidly controlled, Stalinist East Germany. The demonstration of protest was admittedly brief and feeble and went almost unnoticed by the out side world. Yet after years in which any kind of rebellion was virtually unknown among East Germans, a handful of students scarcely out of high school demonstrated solidarity with the Czechoslovaks and pleaded with their countrymen "not to remain silent...
...protesters were tried on "anti-state activities" charges last October and received prison sentences of up to 36 months. Two weeks later, however, they were paroled - apparently because the regime wanted to avoid making martyrs of them. But at least 200 similar cases are still reported pending before East German courts...
...real plan emerged, but that night two of them hung a Czechoslovak flag out of an apartment window, then painted the word Dubcek on the walls of East Berlin's Staatsbibliothek. They were caught a few hours later...
...meantime, other students typed out about 500 handbills calling for "Freedom for Red Prague" and began distributing them near the Friedrichstrasse station, one of East Berlin's busiest districts. They stuck the pamphlets on car windshields and stuffed them into apartment-house mailboxes, Two cops using a police dog finally caught up with two of the protesters, both girls, by following the trail of pamphlets stuck onto parked cars. Pistols drawn, the policemen called for their quarry to surrender. When they finally did, the cops mumbled in embarrassment over their guns: "We thought you were men." While the girls...
...Foreign Minister trying, with some success, to take the rough edges off his government's Soviet-dictated foreign policy. His major contribution was the so-called Rapacki plan of 1957, in which he proposed to the U.N. that all atomic weapons be prohibited in Central Europe, including East and West Germany. It was rejected by the U.S. for lack of adequate guarantees, but may have helped pave the way for the 1968 nuclear nonproliferation treaty. Rapacki's recent position was weakened not only by refusing to go along with the campaign against Jews, which other leaders, including Party...