Tough on the Nerves

In his long years of devoted service to Socialism, Otto Grotewohl had never been a real big shot. But when the Russians moved into Germany, they seized on Grotewohl as a handy tool in their drive to capture the German Socialist Party. In a big shot's place at last, Grotewohl presided over the 1946 "merger" of the Eastern zone's Socialist and Communist parties into the new Socialist Unity Party, which meant in fact Grotewohl's complete surrender to the Reds.

Recently Grotewohl's conscience, and the scorn of his former Socialist friends, seemed to trouble him. Last year he paid a secret call on U.S. and British officials in Berlin, offered to desert the Communists and work for the West. His only condition was that the Socialists in the Western zone welcome him back into the party. Socialist Leader Kurt Schumacher scornfully refused. Grotewohl continued serving the Russians. When the Reds set up their puppet regime in Germany, they made Grotewohl chancellor. In his fine, freshly painted office, the chancellor found little work to do; the Russians ran the show and made the decisions. The real boss of the puppet government was Grotewohl's "deputy," ruthless veteran Communist Walter Ulbricht.

One afternoon last week 55-year-old Grotewohl was taken to the Soviet Military Hospital in Eastern Berlin's Ober-Schoneweide suburb. Six Soviet soldiers escorted him to the second floor suite usually reserved for Russian generals. The Communist Radio Berlin said Grotewohl had the grippe. Privately, top Communist leaders said he had a nervous breakdown. According to Berlin gossip, Grotewohl had long been afraid that the Russians were out to liquidate him as politically unreliable, for weeks had kept his lights burning all night in his Berlin residence. One morning he reportedly found Comrade Ulbricht riffling through his mail in his office and promptly went into a screaming rage. East German President and Communist Boss Wilhelm Pieck then personally ordered Grotewohl confined to the hospital.

His doctors said Grotewohl would have to stay in the hospital at least four weeks. That should certainly be enough to cure a case of grippe, but it was probably not enough to cure a nervous breakdown or a severe case of political jitters. Whatever else was the matter with Grotewohl, he had also developed an incompatibility with the Russians; it might prove incurable.

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