Berlin needs cash lift

Berlin - The Western Allies kept West Berlin alive during the Cold War with an airlift of emergency supplies

Berlin - The Western Allies kept West Berlin alive during the Cold War with an airlift of emergency supplies. Now the reunified city needs another transfusion - of cash - as it prepares for a visit by President Clinton. Germany's largest city, once freedom's most famous outpost, is broke.

Berlin is more than 60 billion marks (£24 billion) in debt. This has quadrupled in the eight years since the Berlin Wall fell and lavish federal subsidies provided by West Germany to keep people from leaving the isolated city began to dry up.

Berlin is pulling out all the stops and spending nearly a million marks on Mr Clinton's visit, and festivities to mark the 50th anniversary of the airlift that helped West Berlin defeat the Soviet quarantine in 1948-'49. But the sums would scarcely cover the city's interest payments this week.