A Serious Estrangement

A Serious Estrangement Communist East Germany boasts a Five-Year Plan, supposed like its Soviet prototype to bring heaven on earth. At the end of its first year, on Jan. 1, the Communists proclaimed an "unheard-of excelling of norms." But last week, in response to an invitation to subject the plan to "remorseless criticism," hundreds of German Communists wrote letters to their newspaper editors. Consensus: the Five-Year Plan--Pfui!

The bitterest complaint was that East German machinery, consumer goods, medicines and food are being shipped off to Russia. All that is left for the Germans is shoddy garments and ill-tasting food. "There are shirts available only for men boasting neck measurements of 42 or 43 centimeters," groused a Berliner with a 38-cm. neck (15 U.S.). Five-Year Plan pencil sharpeners, wrote Stenographer Ursula Hollman, produce nothing but "crooked points." Worst of all, snorted Housewife Elli Dau, is the unrationed liverwurst. "After roasting it, it is still indigestible. Even our dog shrank his nose and shook his head disapproving."

East German Communist leaders sensed that shrinking feeling. Deputy Premier Walter Ulbricht hastily summoned party leaders of East Berlin. After 72 hours of "remorseless criticism," they issued a melancholy manifesto: "Fulfillment of the Five-Year Plan is handicapped by red tape, a reactionary attitude towards what is new, fear of responsibility, lack of discipline, laziness . . . There has developed a serious estrangement between party functionaries and the masses." Then Ulbricht announced ominously that new elections "on all levels of the party apparatus" will be held within a month.

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