The Wall Disease

The maladies of East Germany are usually economic, but last week they were personal as well. Raging in East Berlin was a dysentery epidemic that so far has affected 28,000 people. Those who staggered to public comfort stations found all the toilets were closed to stop the spread of the disease. Students and faculty from East Berlin medical classes were hastily recruited to help out at the hospitals.

The disease first showed up in the port city of Rostock fortnight ago, was traced to a shipment of butter imported from Red China. Muttered one stricken East Berliner: "It's a typical disease of the Wall. Before the Wall went up, we could at least buy green vegetables in West Berlin, but all winter long we got practically no vegetables, and when this dysentery bug appeared, we had no resistance to it."

Meat supplies are also spotty, and mothers have been advised to stretch the short supplies of milk by diluting infants' bottle formulas with water. Potatoes, once a plentiful staple of the German diet, are hard to find. South of Berlin, each farm family has been told to contribute 5 Ibs. of seed potatoes to plant for next year's crop.

East Germany's worsening economic situation was reported in a remarkably frank session of the Communist Party's Central Committee. Goals for the seven-year economic plan were sharply reduced and the public warned to expect further belt-cinching. Communist Boss Walter Ulbricht, in a long, glum speech plastered over more than two pages of the party newspaper, Neues Deutschland, blamed the persistent shortage of consumer goods on "citizens of every stratum of our society who take more out of the pot than they put into it."

Even with Berlin's Wall in place to prevent escapes, East Germany has a built-in labor shortage that can only get worse. About 60,000 production workers will be lost this year, declared Chief Planner Karl Mewis, mainly through retirement, a low birth rate, and the decision by many students to remain in school. Partly as a result of this, the projected plan rate of economic growth was slashed to 5.8%, lowest in the Communist bloc. Thus, by the end of 1962, East Germany will only be one-third as far along in increasing production as it originally planned.

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