FOOD SHORT IN WEST GERMANY

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25660, 24 November 1948, Page 5

FOOD SHORT IN WEST GERMANY

FARMERS SELLING TO BLACK MARKET

AUTHORITIES RELEASE SPECIAL STOCKS (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 10 p.m.) LONDON, Nov. 23. A food crisis in Western Germany is threatened unless Gerfnan farmers substantially increase their deliveries of grain and potatoes, which are being diverted steadily into the black market for higher prices. So serious has the position become, says the Dusseldorf correspondent of “The Times,” that flour is being released from special bizonal stocks to maintain the bread ration. ♦ Large quantities of potatoes may also have to be imported from Holland to meet the winter demand, although this year’s crop was one of the best in Western Germany for several seasons. The Berlin correspondent of the Associated Press says that United States intelligence sources confirm a report in the anti-Communist newspaper “Montags Echo” that Marshal Rokossovsky, chief of the Soviet western armies, had established his headquarters in the Russian zone of Germany. The “Montags Echo" said that Marshal Rokossovsky’s headquarters were at Fuerstensberg, in Mecklenburg. It also claimed that the Russian occupation forces in Germany had been increased and that the Russians were making some concentrations to further their political aims by pressure. Reuter’s Berlin correspondent says that the capital, which already has rival police forces each officially ignoring the other’s existence, will, from to-day, have two rival fire brigades, each expressly forbidden to cross into “enemy” territory even to help fight the most disastrous fire. Dr. Ferdinand Friedensburg, the act-ing-Lord Mayor, announced that after several hours of negotiation it had been agreed that the splitting of the fire brigade into Western and Soviet sections, which began yesterday, would be prolonged indefinitely.