Exchange Scholar Portrays Student Life Under Russia

Wolfram Rohde Liebenau, German exchange student brought here under the auspices of the Student Council, described last night student life in East Germany. Last summer, Liebenau smuggled Jerome Goodman '52 across the border to crash the communist-sponsored World Youth Festival as a "maverick" American delegate.

Liebenau traveled to Berlin's East Zone about once a month. "This was easy," he says, "as long as I didn't have any papers saying I go to the Free University of Berlin. If I did, I might get on the 'Black List;' then crossing would be dangerous."

Carl M. Sapers '53, chairman of the Council's International Student Activities Committee, said the main purpose of the exchange program is to "bring over potential student leaders for a year and then return them." In order to get a full picture of American student life. Liebenau will work for a short time with most student organizations.

There is a scholarship fund set up by the U.S. High Commissioner in Germany which screens applicants. From such a list, the Free University of Berlin's Student Government picked Liebenau. Harvard waived his tuition charges, the Council provided spending money, and the High Commission supplied travel expenses.

Liebenau said German youth after the war wanted to make up for the education they missed. The Nazis had employed one-sided instruction, orientation of all, and selection of the most devoted. "But soon after the universities were reopened in the Soviet zone the same principles in modified form were applied by the Soviet authorities. Now you no longer have to prove your Aryan ancestry, but instead you must establish descendant from proletarians."

Strict Soviet Control

Opposition to the regime is partially eliminated by favoring workers and peasant children for admission. Since September 4, when a new reform program was instituted, students have to take a four-year course in "social sciences" in which "you learn about Marxist, Leninist, and Stalinist theories." Learning Russian is also compulsory-- "so you can read progressive literature in the original text." Those studying for any degree must first satisfy the requirements for both these courses.

Extracurricular activities are expected of every student. First he "joins the communist youth organization, then the Society for Soviet-German friendship, and finally the Communist party. All students have to help collect signatures for the Stockholm Peace Appeal, and for the plebiscite against German rearmament.

Those who do not cooperate receive smaller scholarships or none at all, while there are premiums for active students. "As the standard of life is very low, many students depend on these scholarships. When a quarter of a pound of coffee costs about the 15th part of their grant, it makes a difference whether you receives 1 1/2 times the basic amount or not. Only a few see at what costs they actually obtain this."

No elected student representation is permitted in the Soviet zone any more. Thus many try to study in the Western zone, "but membership in a Western University makes then dangerous to the Communist regime." Liebenau cited the case of one friend of his who was a student in West Berlin's Free University and re- turned for a weekend to the Soviet none.

"Police arrested him, found he was studying in the Western sector, and accused him of being an American spy." When after 48 hours of questioning he did not confess, the Police gave him a document for signature to prove his innocence. The paper states that the accused will turn informer, "so in order to prove that he was not an American spy, he would have to become a Soviet spy."

The boy refused and therefore cannot, enter the Soviet sector any more. "In order to escape the grip of the devil, he would have had to sign a contract to the devil," remarked Liebenau wryly. "He was lucky," he added; "others who have been arrested have never been seen again."

Such conditions were combatted through the founding of the Free University in June 1948. "By November, courses started in three buildings with the professor having one candle on his desk and the students listening in dark, unheated rooms." This was during the Berlin blockade when electricity was turned on for only three hours per day. A year later, 5,000 students had enrolled.

The university is dependent on outside help, which first came from the American High Commission, and is now coming from the Berlin Township. There is no racial discrimination in the university, which is literally student-run. Students serve on the executive, the senate, the economic administration boards, and on disciplinary tribunals and boards of admission.

Thus students in the Soviet zone can still come and get a free education. Liebenau said. In Eastern Germany, however, students still disappear, he stated, "and that is why some refer to the Soviet some as the 'biggest country on earth'; it begins at the river Elbe and a considerable number of its inhabitants live in Siberia.