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1,600 outwit Berlin blockade

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.

In a tough new measure today, the East German regime broke off all telephone and teletype connections with West Germany. Communications from West Berlin to West Germany were not affected.

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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.

The Reds closed the Brandenburg Gate, main crossing point between East and West Berlin, and ordered their soldiers to break up all anti-Communist demonstrations along the border-- a move that raised the possibility of armed clashes.

The Red Interior Ministry warned all West Berliners not to get closer than 100 yards of the border.

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The Reds cut all telephone communications between East and West Berlin in 1953. However, it had been possible until now to telephone from West Berlin to East Germany.

Today, East German troops and police supported by Russian tanks and machine guns barred thousands more East Berliners from the West.

Trapped East Berlin workers were in an ugly mood, but they made no immediate attempt to smash the Communist barricades. The whole city -- both East and West -- was tense for fear an incident would touch off an explosion.

The Communists put the border clampdown in effect early yesterday morning, but their efforts at a total blockade were fruitless.

A 29-year-old bus conductor said he visited a border cemetery, pretended to decorate a grave and scaled a glass-covered wall behind the backs of two Communist guards.

An East Berlin truck driver said he simply walked to an unguarded section of the border, lifted his two small daughters over a barbed-wire barricade, helped his wife over and then scaled it himself.

A 27-year-old mason fled through the ruins that form a no-man's land between the Soviet and American sectors. On the French sector border an East Berlin man wrestled a carbine away from a Communist policeman and ran into the West.

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Another man, a 27-year-old engineer, said he kicked a border policeman in the stomach and dashed on foot through one of the border crossings still open.

The East German Communists lined up a dozen Russian built T-34 tanks, four armored cars and hundreds of soldiers, railway policemen and riot police around the Friedrich Street elevated and subway station before dawn.

This is the station where thousands of East Berliners have been used to catching their westbound trains.

The ones turned back today stood in groups muttering among themselves but attempted no violence.

Heavy reinforcements of Soviet troops were deployed on East German territory just outside the city, ready to rush in and crush any possible rebellion.

The 11,000 Allied soldiers in West Berlin were placed on alert. Their helicopters hovered over the western sector of the city to pinpoint potential trouble spots.

The Communists were careful not to interfere with traffic or communications between West Berlin and West Germany -- separated by 110 miles of Communist territory.

The harsh restrictions, begun early Sunday morning, were aimed solely at plugging the hole through which more than 150,000 East Germans have fled from East to West this year, seriously jeopardizing the East German economy and the prestige of the whole Communist bloc.

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Yesterday the Communist forces used tear gas, smoke bombs, high pressure water cannons and clubs to break up groups of jeering East Berliners.

They even lobbed tear gas bombs across into the American sector at a crowed of booing West Berlin youths and then charged into the group with truncheons. Eyewitnesses said they pulled one young West Berliner back across the line with them.

Tens of thousands of West Berliners mocked the Red troops from their side of the line. As dusk fell last night about 30,000 of them waved lighted torches of hope for their countrymen living in the Red regime.

West German officials were openly fearful that the East Germans, finding themselves virtually imprisoned might try to revolt against the hopeless odds of the 20 Soviet divisions occupying the Russian Zone of Germany.

Both West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and West Berlin Mayor Willy Brandt urged them not to try anything foolish despite the provocation.

The Communist action arbitrarily cut about 50,000 East Berlin residents off from their jobs in West Berlin.

The Communists completely sealed 87 of the crossing points between East and West, leaving the other 13 open but heavily guarded.

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