The Jo Vote

Germany's Russian-zone Communists this week staged one of the most successful Hitler-style ja elections in history. Citizens were free to vote either ja or nein to a single list of candidates. They were free to vote out in the open where Communist checkers could see them, or to go into a polling booth. Catch was that Communist election workers noted the names of all who used the polling booths. Fearing Communist reprisals, nearly all East Germans voted out in the open and voted ja.

The results were not surprising. Less than 24 hours after the election, the Soviet East-zone radio announced that of 12,331,905 eligible to vote, 98.4% cast their ballot. Of these, 12,088,745 voted for the official list and only 35,544 voted nein.

West Berlin's smart antiCommunists, meanwhile, thought up a way to show how little the rigged election represented the real sentiments of East Germans. The West Berliners invited East Berliners to protest against the election by mailing to a West Berlin headquarters the stubs of their September ration cards. At week's end more than 400,000 stubs had poured in, out of a possible 700,000 or so votes in East Berlin.

Another Western device for exposing Communist tyranny was brilliantly successful last week. The West Berlin Publishers' Association erected on the Potsdamer-Platz a crude copy of the N.Y. Times electric news sign. The sign was in the British sector but it faced the Russian sector. Hundreds of East Berliners gathered across the Potsdamer-Platz to read unadulterated news. Enraged Communists turned fire hoses on the sign, then tried vainly to blot it out with strong searchlights. East Berliners went right on looking at the news. Sample bulletin: "Chancellor Konrad Adenauer labels Soviet-zone elections a fraud."

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