It all started on the night of August 12 to 13, 1961. Shortly after At midnight, the teletypes of the East German news agencies began broadcasting a communiqué from the member countries of the Warsaw Pact which accused the NATO powers. to sabotage the East German economy by inciting unstable elements of the population to leave their homes and resorting, for this purpose, to lies, corruption, blackmail. East Germany was therefore forced to take the necessary steps to "restore order".
In less than an hour, armored cars were advancing towards the border. Police and army units closed all lines of communication minus twelve (there were eighty of them) and when the Berliners awoke spirals of barbed wire cut the city in two.
The Westerners did not react immediately. When they did, it was softly. On Sunday afternoon, Dean Rusk, US Secretary of State, said Western rights had not been affected, but a protest would be made. It was not requested that the arrangements made be immediately halted or revoked. Both Dean Rusk and Kennedy decided not to do anything that would aggravate the situation.
West Berlin Mayor Willy Brandt bluntly told the three Western commanders that East Germany had taken possession of East Berlin and torn up the Four Power Occupation Statute.
It was an act of direct aggression that demanded immediate retaliation.
West Berliners waited in vain, in deep anxiety, for a sign that the Americans would steal again to their aid as they had done in 1948. By the thousands they gathered along the border, seized with a sense of anger and frustration as the barricade of barbed wire grew thicker. Many took advantage of their own freedom to see for themselves the Russian tanks and trucks that had turned the other side into a fortified camp.
On Monday, the Washington Evening Star publicized the reaction of Westerners:"We disapproved", but it would not be appropriate to "undertake too drastic action". All the West was willing to do, it seemed, was, in the words of The New York Times, “present the border closure as a tragic admission of communist failure.” But as one West Berlin official put it with deep bitterness:"A few more propaganda victories like this and there won't be much left of Berlin to defend." »
Meanwhile, the East Germans were consolidating their positions. They cut off postal and telephone relations and on Tuesday announced that cars coming
from West Berlin would have to have a pass to enter the East Berlin area. :flagrant violation of Western rights.
The official Western protest was delivered the same day. Admittedly, it contained the list of events and protested against the measures taken, but it did not call for the reopening of the border.
The East Germans had succeeded beyond their wildest expectations. Could we have stopped them on the way? As appears from the statements of a border guard who deserted, they expected reprisals and wanted to avoid a conflict as far as possible. The units that closed the border had not received ammunition. This fact was taken as a sign of Communist uncertainty. However, they did intend to impose their will. The tanks, the armored cars, were armed; a full-scale action launched by the West would have been doomed in the face of powerful Soviet and East German forces.
On Wednesday, 250,000 people gathered in front of West Berlin City Hall, in anger and fear; banners and placards read:“Munich 1938, Berlin 1961” and “Paper protests against tanks? Nope ! ". Brandt said he had asked Kennedy to take immediate action—a request that was dismissed by U.S. officials as crass and presumptuous, a low move to secure political prestige. By the end of the week, however, Kennedy was beginning to worry deeply about the turn of events. Students from Bonn sent him a black umbrella, a symbol of Chamberlain and his policy of appeasement. He decided to act and appointed Vice President Lyndon Johnson head of a mission in Berlin. Airlift hero General Lucius Clay went with him. The American garrison would also receive reinforcements, if only to affirm the right of Westerners to access Berlin.