TOTAL WAR ON BLACK. MARKET

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXXV, Issue 14210, 8 November 1946, Page 4

TOTAL WAR ON BLACK. MARKET

BRITISH ZONE IN GERMANY United Action Against Gangs Threat To Social Order Total war has been declared on the black market which is developing to an alarming degree in the British zone in Germany. . Security and public safety officers of the British Control Commission, military police of Rhine Army ana German police have united against what has become a threat to social order and rehabilitation. An idea of the extent of this threat can be gained from the following incidents which have taken place in various towns of the zone recently. Cologne: Armed raiders bound and gagged a watchman in the food office and got away with 9000 ration books as well as a large quantity of tobacco coupons. Dortmund: A German mob of over 150 attacked German police who arrested a black market ringleader caught in the act. Gelsenkirchen: British military police, assisted by German police, carried out a large scale sweep on the city’s “black market,” making many arrests.

Hamburg: British intelligence officers arrested nine membes of a “black market” gang, who stopped a food train and proceeded to seize the stores.

Following such events, which have happened in rapid sequence, the Public Safety Office of the Control Commission has issued this statement:

“The trade in ration cards, particularly those of bread and fat, has increased during the past has increased during the past month. The number of food cards reported stolen at Cologne does not correspond with the large numbers sold on the local black market. It is believed that they are forged.” Nor is the “black market” confinc:l to traffic in ration cards. “Cattle thefts and illicit slaughtering are still on the increase,” complained an investigator at Control Commission's Eunde Headouarters.

“Farmers are forming ‘watching’ parties,” he added. “But as they have no weapons they are considerably handicapped when dealing with gangs, chiefly Poles, who are invariably armed.” A great deal of “black market ’ activity is carried out at docks. Excellent work in checking racketeers is being done by the German water police who co-operate with British Military Police, Royal naval patrols, and, civil police at landing points.

A German water police official said, “During the month of June in the five districCs of the British zone, 502 checks and raids were made by the Wassersohutzpolizei. We made 219 arrests.”

One operation involved the search of 780 vessels. As a result the following ships were found to have “black market” cargo: 23 Dutch, 13 German, 9 Belgian. Property confiscated included food, oil, soap, tobacco, clothing, office equipment machinery, and one motor cycle. Large scale checks on ships in the Bremen area recently have led to the seizure of large stocks of radio tubes, telephone cables, binoculars, rubber boots, cloth, and coal. Among the goods sequestered was a searchlight. The main traffic is in bread and fat ration cards. In spite of the fact that everything is being done to .check this form of “black market,” police authorities expect it to go on as long as the food shortage is acute. Another form of “black market” which is rife throughout the British zone is the sale of “hooch.” German and Polish bootleggers are distilling large quantities of poisonous liquor made from molasses, antifreeze mixture and potatoes, which they sell for as much as 500 marks per bottle. Apart from “black market” at the docks, by far the greatest amount of black* marketing is conducted on the German, railways. Surveys at railway stations reveal that vast quantities of foodstuffs for the “black market,” especially potatoes, are being carried by passenger trains, reducing the accommodation for passengers and causing them to travel on running boards and buffers.

So British military police and German police are carrying out systematic checks. To avoid holding u|p trains for long periods, the checking is done by a team of 100 men. Latest figures show that the average delay to 81 trains checked was only five minutes. An officer who was a member of one of the checking teams said;

“When it became obvious that a police check was being carried out many passengers threw goods out of the windows or abandoned them in the corridor to avoid detection. “One young woman who had about 1400 cigarettes in her possession had them concealed in the stockings she was wearing beneath her long trousers. Among, the stuff we seized during the last series of raids were SO pigs and about 2000 hundredweight of potatoes.”

“These black marketeers are up to all kinds of dodges,” said one guard. “Sometimes they jump on to a slowly moving train and uncouple the last two trucks. They have even gone the length of filling axle grease boxes with sand.”