Word: whitsunday
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...Storm Troopers. By Whitsunday eve, Berlin looked tense. Armored cars, troops and police patrolled the border between the Eastern and Western sectors. On the big day, the Communist youngsters were awakened by buglers before dawn. By 7 they had begun to march down Unter den Linden toward the Lustgarten. The route of march was plastered with flags and big propaganda posters, depicting the standard Russian heroes (Lenin, Stalin, Mao Tse-tung) and evil-looking "dollar imperialists." One poster showed a trio of capitalist exploiters in Edwardian garb, complete with grey toppers. With the kids marched 10,000 grim-faced "Special...
...proved themselves as good as the Nazis at that deadly game. Their Freie Deutsche Jugend (Free German Youth) seems like a near-perfect reincarnation of the Hitler Youth. The world might get a good look at the young Communists when they stage their long-heralded "march on Berlin" on Whitsunday (see above). Last week, TIME Correspondent Enno Hobbing cabled this preview...
...months, East German Communists had militantly whooped up a Whitsunday youth march on West Berlin. The Reds had proclaimed that, on May 28, half-a-million members of the Communist-run FDJ (Freie Deutsche Jugend) would converge on Berlin's Western sectors in military formation. Their slogan: "Forward-Berlin Must Be Ours!" In Meissen, a Communist speaker had added a warlike warning. Said he: "When the first shot is fired, that will be the signal for the storming of Berlin...
Meanwhile, out in the Soviet zone, FDJ auxiliary units scrounged busily to supply uniforms (blue shirts, black trousers) for the Whitsunday marchers. Harassed farmers were peremptorily ordered to provide extra travel rations. The East German Finance Ministry announced that the marchers were eligible for special Whitsuntide death and accident insurance. In Saxony, Communist youth leaders, many of whom had learned their trade as Hitler youth, instructed their new charges in street-fighting tactics...
Despite the Communists' protestations of pacifism, Berlin's war of nerves waxed hotter & hotter-even though Whitsunday was still seven weeks away. Said one Allied official: "It's like having a fortuneteller announce that you're going to die in exactly seven weeks. You can try to laugh it off, but you'll be pretty nervous until the fatal day is safely over." Whatever tune the Communists played, it was obvious that Berlin was going to be very warm...