A press conference in East Germany. United States Army men reply to journalists in the press conference organized to denounce their captors (Germans) as kidnappers. German officers sit. The journalists note down.
Communist threat to Berlin, Germany as the Soviet Union presses for a unified Communist Berlin. Traffic signal man demonstrates hand signals on street in West Berlin. View of citizens in West Berlin shopping, engaging in commerce, and going to and from work among newly constructed buildings, improved roads, and wearing new fashions. Sign near the Brandenburg Gate. Contrast is made with East Berlin, East Germany where buildings still in ruin from World War II are shown, including on the famous Unter den Linden Boulevard. Communist East German troops march on road. Woman enters a building and writes on a note pad. East German workers dig with spades at a construction site. The Western Powers get out of free Berlin uniting with the East Berlin under communist rule. Social and economic differences seen contrasting communist versus capitalist systems in Berlin. A woman working alongside men at a construction site.
U.S. propaganda piece about threats by communists against various European countries. The Czechoslovak coup and demonstrations. Czech citizens moving on a street in Czechoslovakia during a strike forcing conservative elements to resign from the cabinet. Scenes of police brutality and beatings against strikers. Communists take over the police. Czech President Edvard Benes with conservative politicians in a government building. Huge crowd on a street. Police clashing with crowd. Czech Prime Minister Klement Gottwald with officials. President Edvard Benes, facing possible civil war or invasion by the Soviet Union, accepts a Communist cabinet. He is seen signing documents to that effect on February 25, 1948. Other officials beside President Benes during the signing. View of the first President of Czechoslovakia Tomas Masaryk's son, Jan Masaryk, who remained the Foreign Minister, and did not agree to the new government. Two days later Jan Masaryk is discovered dead. The body of Jan Masaryk in a coffin. Edvard Benes, who resigned in June 1948 after refusing to sign the communist constitution, is seen walking slowly outside the Parliament using a cane. A guard saluting Benes. View of the body of Edvard Benes, who died in September 1948, laying in a coffin. Mourning citizens offering flowers and cry. Officials bearing the coffin. Shift several years later to street strikes in East Germany in 1953. People during a strike and riot in Poland in 1956. Russian tanks moving on a street and Soviet soldiers are seen. Elevated view of panic and Polish citizens fleeing soldiers. October 1956: Student demonstrators on street in Budapest Hungary during the Hungarian Uprising of 1956. Soviet Russian red star is toppled by crowds from a building roof in a sign of defiance. Russian troops respond with tanks on the streets in Hungary. Crowd fights back. Russians retreat. Crowd overwhelms local police. Imre Nagy, Prime Minister of Hungary, ascends steps. Hungarian crowd on streets burn communist books and papers. Russian tanks invade Hungary to crush revolt. Tanks fire guns on Hungarian street. Imre Nagy's execution announced June 17, 1958.
Russian troops march as Russia begins withdrawal of 41,000 troops from East Berlin, Germany, with an initial departure by 500 troops. Posters of two leaders on wall. German on a board. Russian soldiers board railroad train. Soldiers with flowers in hand. Train and obsolete T-34 tanks depart East Germany by rail.