European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - June 29, 1994, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Short subject russian troops Are to be  comrades before boarding a train for Home. A Germany offers russian soldiers Back of the hand Farewell by Mary Williams Walsh los Angeles times a do you say a bum s Rush in German the approximate translation is a. Deplorable seven syllables Long but no matter. The expression has been vividly played out All around greater Berlin this Spring and Early summer in the final act of the great piece of theater known As the end of the cold War Germany s Back of the hand Farewell to the russians. Half a Century ago the red army captured Berlin from its nazi defenders at a Cost of More than 300,000 soviet lives. British and american troops counted for Little in the final bloody three weeks of fighting for Hitler s capital. To this Day the bodies of 20,000 soviet soldiers lie buried within the a Berlin City limits and tens of thousands More rest in 525 red army cemeteries in the surrounding Countryside. Ask a German today whether the fall of Berlin marked a defeat or a liberation for Germany and he or she will almost certainly Call it a liberation. Polls show again and again that germans Are glad their Side lost the War and that virtually no one would have wanted to live in Germany had Hitler prevailed. But you would never know the germans were grateful to judge by the Way they Are showing the door to their erstwhile liberators. The russians kept 339,000 troops along with 211,000 dependents and civilian support personnel in East Germany during the cold War. By comparison the Western allies committed Token occupation forces to West Berlin about 12,000 americans British and French. Now that All Are going Home the French americans and British have been repeatedly feted with parades fireworks barbecues and assorted other merriment. It meanwhile Here Are the russians who held their Farewell party amid the Weed choked window boxes and cracked pavements of a Mensdorf a tumbledown military base an hour s drive out of Berlin instead of appreciative thousands at the curbside there were Only fellow russian dependents watching and some curious German onlookers invited in from nearby villages. But it might have been even worse. Earlier this year the German a government had planned to give the russians their Send off. In Weimar 150 Miles Southwest of Berlin a a town that was in fact captured not by the soviets but by american troops. Russia s top commander in Germany Gen. Matvei Burlakov rebelled at this historical snub in an angry news conference a and a few Days later the germans said the russians could March in Berlin after All. But Only in an outlying suburb. And not Wilh the other allies. The russians held their Parade in the Eastern part of Berlin. Quot live Well Germany Homeland Here we come Quot Sang the 1,500 soldiers of the elite 6th motorized defense brigade based in karts Horst. About 90 armoured vehicles took part in the Parade past thousands of germans. The West is the Winner the East is. The loser a that is How everything is done in Germany Quot says Lothar Bisky chairman of this country s party of democratic socialism the successor to the former East German communist party. Quot the cold War never  All Over what used to be East Germany symbols of russian valor and might Are disappearing. Monuments have been taken Down and streets Are being renamed. Few germans a particularly germans in what used to be the West have sympathy for the russians plight. Having watched their Western keepers prevail in the Long fought ideological contest with Moscow germans Are in general reluctant now to cling to the least reminder that the soviets won the military struggle. No one Here can forget that it was the soviets after All who followed up their 1945 liberation with the 1948 blockade of Berlin. Or that it was the soviets in the summer of 1953, who sent tanks into Berlin to brutally put Down an East German construction workers uprising. Or that it was the soviets who approved construction of the Berlin Wail and who served As the puppeteers behind the East German regime. Quot the five years since the fall of the Berlin Wall do not cancel out the 45 years that went before Quot says Joachim Thies foreign editor of the newspaper die Welt and a conservative authority on International affairs. Quot the russians were oppressors. As individuals they Are poor people and they must certainly feel very miserable now. But for me they Are still the representatives of the oppressors and they will be until the last moment Quot in Italy Bambini Are in Short Supply by William d. Montalbano los Angeles times la Mamma is the same dominant figure in Italy today that she was in Caesar s time but she is raising fewer a Bambini than Ever and her changing role is forcing a social revolution in a country that is running out of children. A land where baby clothes hanging on Urban Wash lines has been As much a tradition As pasta is now grading rapidly. Italy s birthrate today is the lowest in its history and the lowest in the world a 1.3 babies per woman. And that number is falling. The decline has been a Long time building now Long Range scenarios of its Impact Are beginning to alarm some specialists. And for the first time the italian government is casting about for social and economic policy initiatives to revitalize the family. Italy s a a Bambini Gap is at once a product of change and a catalyst for further change. On the one hand it triggers Here and now challenges that reach into every Corner of National life. On thex ther it implicitly offers an against the Odds Chance for a new life to ambitious immigrants like fan Shuli. When she left her native town near Shanghai four years ago fan says she knew Coffee As an exotic luxury that Only foreigners drank. Now she serves cappuccino for a living in the Shadow of the 2,000-year-old pantheon Here a one of thousands of new arrivals doing jobs for which there Are too few native italians. If current rate persist in another Century instead of 57 million italians there wifi be about 15 million half older than 60, said Antonio Golini director of the government financed Institute for population studies. High or Low Fertility Only become dangerous if they last too Long. Italy is reaching that Point a he said. A if the trend continues for another five to 10 years it will be alarming because it becomes so difficult to reverse a a a numbers Golini notes Are inexorable. If res birthrate were it it re overnight to two children per woman it would still take 30 years for the population to grow. Italy is aging quickest but All of Western Europe is shunning children in the Wanna years of a tumultuous Era Europe had about one third the world s population when the 20th Century began today it has one tenth. Fertility rates for Europe of 2,8 in 1965 fell to 2.1 in 1975 and to about 1,5 by 1990. I if1 j0 12�?~member european Union onto in Reland Are enough babies being born to keep the population growing. Y p artifisk0399 09 Vatican opposition to artificial birth control and abortion Catholic of Merv comm 9 a i01 1 0rth�dox Greece and i Cor in St astern Germany near info f european Fertility charts his i9, close knit families have history cafe formed the Backbone of society ?c�lmnendati0ns�?T partnerships. Doctors plumbers priests lawyers a All sprang from a seemingly endless Chain of cousins and in Laws. Even 20 years a children were still fashionable same thin3s Nat have lowered birthrates in other parts of the industrialized world says Carla Collicelli Deputy is of Sosa  research Center in dust Quot what is fun , p 11 Chang a she Sato Aly is the Speed of20 the stars and stripes wednesday june 29, 1994