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APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200110019-3


FIGURE 9. Control points in East Berlin (U/OU) (map)


held this post since 1948. Friedrich Ebert, a member of the SED Politburo and son of the first President of the Weimar Republic, served for 19 years, retiring in 1967 for reasons of health at the age of 73. He was replaced by Herbert Fechner, a candidate member of the SED Central Committee and a former Berlin borough mayor. The Lord Mayor and members of the Magistrat supervise a number of municipal offices (a planning commission, a press office, and departments of finance, church affairs, police, justice, statistics, and posts and telegraphs) which handle the affairs of the city but have no jurisdiction over ministries and agencies of the East German Government located in East Berlin. Former city institutions such as Humboldt University are also subordinated to central government control.

East Berlin's municipal assembly (Volksvertretung) of 180 members elects the municipal council and sends 66 members to the East German People's Chamber. The question of voting rights for these delegates has often been an issue in East-West relations (their West Berlin counterparts are not permitted to vote in the West German chambers) and the representatives were required to sit apart from the other delegates. By early 1972, however, the city's representatives appeared to have been quietly given full voting rights and were in no way singled out from the other delegates. This municipal assembly still reenacts legislation and decrees enacted by the central government, thereby underlining the separate character of the city. In the event that East Germany should take the long-deferred step of formally incorporating East Berlin


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APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200110019-3