RUSSIAN OBJECTION IN RECENT BERLIN MOVES

Chronicle (Levin), 17 April 1948, Page 5

RUSSIAN OBJECTION IN RECENT BERLIN MOVES

(N.Z.P.A.-

-Reuter,

, covuriaht)

Received Friday, 8.50 p.m. LONDON, April 16. Oontrary to some opinions which believe that the Russian • actions in Berlin have been' takeii with the objective of the early mnoval of the Western Allies from. that eity, the Manchester (Juardian's correspondent believes that the wright of RuSsian pressui'c has lain elsewhere — in the Russian Zone in ( Iermany. For three weeks, the correspondent says, reports have been hooding- in from the Russian Zone. I11 the last week of March a nolcd anti-Communist in Leipzig fled to the British Zone after anlieipating'the arrival of Russian secret police by half an hour. 11c was I'ollowed by the Liberal Finance Minister oi' Braiulenburg. Early in April a wavo of arrests of anti-Governinent Social DemocraLs begait in Thuringia. The Russian commandant of the Pankow district of Berlin . 1'orbarle Christian Dcinocrats to attend a meeting of the "Western Deniocratic" wing°ol' the partv. A political "clean up" in the Russian Zone is in full swing.

In Berlin Ihe Soviets told students of the university to study the Coinniunist doctrine or they would be cut off from their normal issues of clothes aiul shoes. Berlin lawyers vvere told this week that they might defend in legal cases only in one lown in the Rus sian Zone. Confiscations of properly have reaehed unlieard of proportions in the last. three weeks and owners of farms have been evicted willton! reason or eompensation. Large farmcrs have been dispossessed witli an additional singular elause--. that they should depart at least 35 miles l'rom tlieii- holding to whore they would no longer arouse loeal symjtafhv and dissatisfaetion. The ' "people 's police" has l)een vastly inereased and new "actiou eommittees" formed in most of the large eommunities. Tlie "clean-up" must be saf'eguarded and a regular movement of pxiliee to the western frontier has been going on for a month. A sudden tightening up of the Russian police defenees has been oljserved from the British i'rontiers. In general good Communists have been enrolled as "new" ])oliee or mai'ried men whose family ties prevent them l'rom eseapitig. Brilish soure.es; eoniiian the appearaiice of black unil'ornied police on the fi'onlier. All along the routes which these conscripts must travel schools, dancehalls and restaurants are being requisitioned for billoting spaee. The new police are being- arnied and equipped witli vehicles and searehlights. The reports of Russian troop movenients are so eonfused that these may well be part of the spring nianoeuvres starting early in Ihe fine weather. Their seale is eonsiderable but not alarming. It is reasonable to suppose that war is not the Russian objective but ihe drawing down of the "Jron Curtain". As a secondary measure Berlin is being sealed off within Ihe zone. Russian posts are now sited along the very boundaries of the town and not as before two to three miles baek. The new posts went into position during ihe last fortiiight. Xo more food parcels may be >>eui into Berlin from the Russian Zuiie and thousands of parcels ad-'•iresst-d 1o Western (Iermany have iniecl up in Berlin. Mai! clearance is slowing down and deliveries of iinished goods from Berlin to the west have been declining disas1 roitsly. Ilere the Russian aim v. oijld sgem to be the economic detaehmeiit of Berlin from the zones of ihe Western Allies and its conse(|uent depc.ndence on its Sovietadministered hinterland in East ern ( Iermany. Do these two eertain actions-—-the sealing off of the Russian Zone Irom Western Europe and the subsidiary sealing off of Berlin — explain the "Berlin crisis"? Flcarly it is possible. says the cor- ' i-es|)ondent, for although il seemingly it is the Allies who suf'l'er from the new traffie regulations it is in i'ael the (termans who are most affected. It' Berlin 's western supplv lines are eut it is the (Jerman population of the western sectors and not the Allies who will starve. Russian actiou dtiring the last week has been successful only in this: it'diverted attention from Ihe eentres of action to the eentres of four-Power misuiulerstanding and coni'usion. Personalities of the capital eity captured the news. In Berlin the situation is not — -as the Foreign Office professes — normal, but it is abnormal rather because. of wliat is going on outside it than becanse of what has happened inside its boundaries.