GRAVE DISPARITY OF POLICY I GERMANY

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 151, 28 June 1945, Page 5

GRAVE DISPARITY OF POLICY I GERMANY

OCCUPIED ZOMS

Methods In East And West Are Wide Apart N.Z. Press Association—Copyright Rec. noon. LONDON, June 27. Disturbing signs of different policies in the western and eastern zones of Germany are accumulating, says The Times diplomatic correspondent. The latest and sharpest example is the dissolution, at the requests of the British Military Government, of the Free Socialist Trade Union Association at Hamburg because it had become "too political in character" simultaneously with the announcement from Berlin that the Russian military leaders had approved the establishment of the Free German Trade Union Association.

The disparity Detween west and east becomes clear in the treatment of directly political groups. They are still forbidden in the west and south, the British and American ! authorities wishing to make doubly and trebly sure that the leaders have clean records and trustworthy programmes, but the Russians, on their side, are permitting the development of groups which are said to be genuinely anti-Nazi, allowing them to publish programmes in newspapers and over the radio. Most Germans are probably too numb to mark the difference in political approach, but at least some in the western and southern zones are listening to Berlin radio. Evidence from Germany strongly suggests that the differences will sharpen unless- Allied plans are more closely co-ordinated economically and politically.