TROUBLE IN AUSTRIA

Chronicle (Levin), 12 June 1947, Page 5

TROUBLE IN AUSTRIA

Press Assn.-

Communists Seek Cabinet Re-Shuffle

By Tetegraph

-Copyrigh.

Received Thursday, 10.35 a.m. LONDON, June 11. The Austrian Parliament fias rejected a demand by the Communist leader, Herr Ernst Fischer, that a Parliamentary committee be appointed to investigate the case of the Foreign Minister, Herr Karl Gruber, and fiis alleged negotiations with the hmerican authqrities in Vienna, says Reuter's Vienna correspondent. The Communist newspaper Volkstimme accused the British authorities at Klangenfurt of "kidnapping" Josef Tschofenig, leader of the Garpathian Communist Party. The paper said that two Epglishmen took him from his office in a car to Nuremberg, saying that he musi testify in the war crimes trial of Dr. Wilhelm Beigelboeck, former research' doctor at Dachau camp. The correspondent says that no British comment is available. The British XJnited Press' Vienna correspondent says that the Hungarian Ambassador to Austria, M. . Ladislaus Bartok, resigned his post yesterday and fled to Switzerland. It is, believed that he received a summons from his Government to return to Hungary. He is reported. to have left a note saying that he was "only willing to serve a deinocratic Government." Earlier Reuter's Vienna correspondent said it was reliably reported that Herr Gruber had sent his resignation to the Chancellor, Dr. Figl, following the publication of a special edition of Volkstimme, naming Herr Gruber as an "American agent" responsible for a "leakage of news" about secret talks between Dr. Figl and the Commuiiist leader, Herr Fischer, on the subject of a possible Cabinet re-shuffle. The Volkstimme demanded Herr Gruber's resignation and the resignation of "the whole catastrophe* Cabinet." A Government Press officer denied the report that Herr Gruber sent his resignation to Dr. Figl, but other sources maintain that the story is true, although they say there is a possibility that negotiations may result in Herr Gruber withdrawing his resignation. The People's Party issued a statement eonfirming that there had been secret discussions with the Communists but stating that the Communists' proposals for a Cabinet re-shuffle had been refused.