Allies nearly gave West Berlin to Soviets in return for more land in Germany

London, Aug.16 (ANI): Declassified secret files have revealed that at the height of the Cold War, the West was poised to trade West Berlin in exchange for other territory in then East Germany.

The revelation came as Germany celebrates the 50th anniversary of the construction of the Berlin Wall.

According to the Daily Mail, the then West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer made the suggestion that West Berlin, occupied by French, British and U.S. forces, might be exchanged for parts of the East German state.

Adenauer bypassed both the UK and France and went instead directly to the Americans, according to Der Spiegel magazine, which published details of the betrayal-that-nearly-was.

The magazine obtained old West German government documents which showed Adenauer speaking of the idea both to U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk and to President John F Kennedy, suggesting the United States might offer such a deal to the Soviet Union.

The idea was to let East German and Soviet forces take control of West Berlin, a long sought-after goal of Soviet policy, in exchange for West Germany extending its border eastwards into Thuringia and parts of Saxony and Mecklenburg-Western Pomarania.

After the war, Berlin was sectioned in quarters, with France, the UK and the U.S. each receiving an equal portion of the west, and Russia taking the east.

These areas - handed over to Soviet forces at the end of the Second World War in accordance with the agreement reached at the Potsdam Conference between Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill - were rich in resources like brown coal. They also had many factories and industries not destroyed in the Allied saturation bombing.

The deal would have included the cities of Schwerin and Leipzig, the latter becoming the second city of the German Democratic Republic.

Adenauer made his approaches to the Americans after the wall went up in Berlin on August 13, 1961, sealing the route out of East Germany that was haemorrhaging citizens.

Der Spiegel said Adenauer thought he might profit politically from such an exchange or, at the very least, stir up trouble between Soviet and East German authorities if Moscow was at least tempted by the idea.

The Adenauer revelations have shocked many in Berlin, with the Kurier newspaper saying he wanted to 'betray' the city he promised to support. (ANI)