Report, Anton Plenikowski, 'Events in the Apparatus of the Local Government Agencies'

Berlin, June 18, '53

Re: Events in the Apparatus of the Local Government Agencies"

1. As early as June 13, a session of the municipal council in Schmerkow, Potsdam district, took place; at the same time, the enemies of the German Democratic Republic had organized a farmers ' meeting in the restaurant. The farmers then appeared in the municipal council and demanded [its members] to come to the restaurant. The municipal council went there and signed a declaration it was presented with which contained the well-known RIAS propaganda against the government.

2. In Rathenow 4 members of the health department of the district council as well as some members of the department of agriculture participated in the demonstrations. The same happened in Brandenburg where 10 to 15 members of the requisition subdivision of the municipal council also took part in the demonstrations.

3. In Domburg, Zerbst county, in the Magdeburg district, a mayor declared that her keys to the mayor's office were allegedly taken away by persons and she therefore went home. At the Magdeburg district council there have according to reports been only 2 cases in which staff members, namely in the labor division, participated in the demonstrations. In one case it was a woman whose husband, a member of a strike committee, got her to join the demonstration.

4. In the Cottbus district, statements were made by some mayors in talks which reveal their attitude toward the German Democratic Republic. Known by name in this connection is Mayor Martiniak of the Terpt community in Luckau county.

5. When fascist bandits invaded the building of the municipal council of the Gorlitz, the staff member responsible for the city radio made his apparatus available to these bandits for broadcasting their messages.

6. In the county of Wemigerode, the country chairman of the LDPD demanded the immediate convening of the county assembly [Kreistag] as well as the municipal assembly (Gemeindevertretung) in order to decide on "emergency measures" -- in the vein of the measures demanded by the fascist provocateurs.

7. On the other hand there are tendencies of sectarianism. Thus a mayor's convention was held in Beeskow county on June 1, 1 953. During the meeting here some of the mayors took a stance against the government's decisions of June 9, 1953.

Berlin, June 18, 1953

sig. [Anton] Plenikowski