Letter to Walter Ulbricht on South Korean Students Living in Germany

SED Central Committee

Department of International Relations

Archival Signature: SAPMO-BA, DY 30, IV 2/20/134

SED Internal Note

To: Comrade Walter Ulbricht

From: Department of Foreign Policy and International Relations

Date: 3 June 1959

[large handwritten comments by Walter Ulbricht on top:]

[To] Department of Foreign Policy

[To] Department of Work toward the West

Not through the Embassy, only through

SED or KPD [Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands, West German Communist Party].

Not appropriate

Dear Comrade Ulbricht!

The Ambassador of the DPRK, Comrade Pak Il-yeong [Pak Il Yong], posed the following questions on instruction by the 2^nd secretary of the KWP Central Committee:

1. Whether the SED Central Committee will agree that about two to three comrades from the South Korea Department of the KWP Central Committee will be deployed in the DPRK embassy in Berlin in order to deal and work with South Korean students in West Germany. Currently about 105 South Koreans are studying at universities and colleges in Munich, Hamburg, Frankfurt and other cities. Some of these students are said to have already expressed their desire to move to the DPRK. Apparently the comrades from the KWP Central Committee would be officially tasked with studying the German question. Otherwise they would deal, exclusively from Berlin, with all issues concerning the return of these students.

2. Whether the embassy will be supported by us, respectively the comrades from the KPD, in order to obtain information about the attitude of these students.

3. Whether there can be a written agreement between both parties [SED and KWP] about this type of cooperation with the KWP. Here the ambassador referred to analogous cooperation with the Communist Party of China in this area, and he mentioned there exists a respective agreement between the CCP and the KWP.

The Department for Foreign Policy and International Relations suggests:

ad 1.:

We should allow the KWP Central Committee to deploy two to three comrades in their embassy in Berlin to deal with these questions.

[crossed out by hand by Walter Ulbricht]

ad 2.:

We should recommend to the Korean comrades to address individual cases to the Department of Foreign and International Relations via the Korean embassy in Berlin. The office of the department would have to decide case by case whether there is a chance to obtain information about the attitudes of respective South Korean students.

[crossed out by hand by Walter Ulbricht]

ad. 3.:

In our opinion, it is unnecessary and inappropriate to have a written agreement on the tasks of these [Korean] comrades.

We ask for instructions whether we should act according to the suggestions proposed.

With socialist greetings

[signed] Kohrt