BERLIN, Aug. 14, 1961 (UPI) -- East Berlin is a city under siege.

BERLIN, Aug. 14, 1961 (UPI) -- Eight years ago this summer the Soviet zone of Germany exploded into violence. The situation then was similar to the one that is building up in East Germany today.From February, 1953, refugees had fled East Germany at a rate of more than 1,000 a day.

BERLIN, Aug. 14, 1961 (UPI) -- East German Communist police today hurled tear gas into crowds of jeering West Berliners protesting the closing of the border between East and West Berlin.

BERLIN, Aug. 14, 1961 (UPI)--- Sixteen hundred East Germans have squeezed through the Communist blockade since it went into effect; it was revealed here today.A total of 5,300 refugees registered in West Berlin, from Saturday afternoon until this morning. Of these, 3,700 registered before the blockade yesterday.

BONN, Aug. 14, 1961 (UPI) -- West German foreign minister Heinrich von Brentano and the American, British and French ambassadors met today. They agreed the new Communist border repressions were "very serious."A British spokesman said that any strategy decided on to combat the sealing of the Berlin border zone would be coordinated by the Western Ambassadorial Committee in Washington. The American, French and British ministers left the meeting to report to their governments immediately on the talk.

BERLIN, Aug. 15, 1961 (UPI)--- Communist East German police opened fire today for the first time on refugees fleeing East Berlin. They also arrested scores of anti-Communists.The police began to fire when refugees tried to sneak across the East-West Berlin border by scaling barricades and swimming across canals and lakes.

LONDON, Aug. 15, 1961 (UPI)--- Radio Moscow said today East Germany will re-open its borders "when peaceful settlement with Germany is reached."The broadcast, monitored in London, appeared to indicate that the price for an open border would be acquiescence to Soviet demands that the Western powers sign a peace treaty with East Germany, thus granting recognition to the satellite regime as a sovereign state.