EAST EUROPEAN DEFENCES

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 69, Issue 269, 26 August 1949, Page 3

EAST EUROPEAN DEFENCES

More Precautions Reported “MOST EXCLUSIVE EFFORT IN CZECHOSLOVAKIA” IH.if.A. Coii .yrl* tit) NEW YORK, August 24. “The Soviet orbit in Europe from the Baltic to the Near East has in the last month intensified its security measures, including the laying of minefields in some sections of the East-West border, and tiie transfer eastward of entire border villages,” says the Berlin correspondent of the “New York Herald Tribune.” “The latest effort to consolidate Communist power in Soviet Europe may, in the opinion of some Western observers, be linked to .the Russian war of nerves launched this week against Yugoslavia. It is considered incely that the Soviet Union wanted to make its position as secure as possible before beginning its current diplomatic offensive against Marshal Tito. “The most extensive effort to seal off Eastern Europe from the West has been reported from Czechoslovakia. During the summer a whole network of minefields, elevated guard posts, and barbed-wire and other fortifications has been erected where this country borders on the United States zone of Germany. In attempting to tighten security controls the Czechs have in a number of areas established six-mile-wide strips as no-man’s land between their country and Germany.

“Hungary is also resorting to barbed wire installations to protect its western borders with Austria. “Mass transfer of so-called unreliable minorites have been reported not only from Eastern Europe, but from European Russia itself. Jewish populations have been victms of the Soviet policy, which is to send into Asiatic Russia any element which is not cdmpletely trustworthy. The Russian intention, according to Eastern sources, is to continue the transplantation of the population until its borders with the West are peopled with thoroughly indoctrinated Communists.”