Tag #136483 - Interview #77987 (ladislav porjes)

The next day after my election, my wife, two school-age daughters and I were woken early in the morning by the merciless ringing of the doorbell at our East German apartment. At the door stood representatives of our embassy, a member of the NKVD [50] and the last was the aforementioned reporter of the Soviet ‘Pravda’ whom I had defeated in the election. They claimed that my election to the function of deputy chairman of the West German ‘Presseverein’ had been manipulated. They insisted that I give up the position. I recommended to them that they should kindly verify how the correspondents from the RVHP countries voted. For my colleagues from the Soviet Union had boasted to me that they had as one voted for me. Further, I told them to kindly go see all of the about thirty members of the West German Foreign Press Club, and ask them if they agree with a review of yesterday’s elections. For a while our uninvited guests still tried to convince me to give up the position in favor of the ‘Pravda’ correspondent, that it’s after all my duty from a standpoint of international comradeship. But when they didn’t succeed, they left without any further threats. For in Czechoslovakia, the Prague Spring – both meteorological and political – was beginning.