Whereas
the brutal suppression by the Soviet Communist regime through the use of armed force and police terror of workers seeking the rights of free assembly and other rights assured to all in the free world; the persecutions of members of a religious faiths; the continuing servitude enforced upon the captive peoples; the systematic repression of all non-Communist political elements in the Soviet dominated countries and recently the acts against the people of Soviet-dominated countries, deserves strongest condemnation; and constitute (a) suppression of individual and human rights, and (b) persecution on account of race and religion; (c) violate the declarations of the Preamble to the Charter of the United Nations; and (d) violate the basic principles set forth in the American Declaration of Independence of 1776: ". . . that all men are created that, they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to affect their Safety and Happiness. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."; and

Whereas
the people of East Berlin, East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Rumania, Hungary and other Communist-dominated countries have so courageously demonstrated their strong devotion to these principles of freedom and justice by their heroic resistance to the Soviet-controlled East German regime and mindful that the United States secured its freedom by popular revolt against tyranny; and

Whereas
the Soviet regime being unable to win the allegiance of the people under its rule, knows no other method of achieving the compliance of the people to their dictatorship than by force of arms, terror, murder, imprisonment, reprisals and mass deportation; and

Whereas
the cause of freedom cannot be contained and will eventually triumph: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved,
That the Congress commends and encourages the valiant struggle of these captive peoples for freedom.

SEC. 2. It is further the sense of the Congress that the United States express in the United Nations and in every other way open to it the indignation of its people against these suppressions of workers and religious persecutions in the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics and the Communist satellites, its sympathy with the tragic victims of these suppressions and religious persecutions, and its determination that international law and individual and human rights be observed in the world.

SEC. 3. That the Congress of the United States in behalf of the American people hereby expresses the firm conviction that the people of East Germany are entitled to their basic, inalienable God-given rights and freedoms for which they are now struggling.

SEC. 4. That the Congress of the United States further expresses the firm conviction of the American people that the people of Germany now presently divided, have the right to be a unified nation governed by their own consent by the free expression of popular will in free election.

SEC. 5. That the Congress of the United States further expresses in behalf of the American people its friendship and sympathy with the people of East Germany, particularly those who have suffered at the hands of the Communists because of their patriotic defiance of Communist tyranny and denounces the action of the Communist regime in killing, imprisoning, and deporting those who have openly demonstrated their love of liberty and justice, and asserts that their heroic sacrifice and suffering will aid the cause of freedom in all the communist enslaved nations and will inspire freedom loving people everywhere.

Agreed to August 3, 1953

Source: Documents on Germany, 1944 - 1985. 4th edition. Department of State. Office of the Historian