PROTESTS TO RUSSIA

Press, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 26117, 20 May 1950, Page 7

PROTESTS TO RUSSIA

Police Force In East Germany BRITAIN, FRANCE, AND U.S. ACT (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 9 p.m.) LONDON, May 19. Th* diplomatic correspondent of the ‘Daily Telegraph” says that Britain, the United States, and France are to protest to Russia against the creation off what amounts to an East German Army in the guise of a special police force. The protests will be made independently by their ambassadors in Moscow. The British Foreign Secretary (Mr Ernest Bevin) and the French Foreign Minister (Mr Robert Schuman) preferred this method to that of a joint protest, which was advocated by the United States Secretary of State (Mr I Dean Acheson). The force about which the Western Powers complain is a special branch : of the People’s Police called “emer- : gency units.” These units have mili- j tary weapons and training. The most conservative estimate of their present strength is 50,000. I Many of the members are former officers and non-commissioned officers of the German Army. Their normal armament includes machine-guns, anti-tank rifles and armoured cars, and there are reliable reports that some of them are trained in the use of tanks and artillery. The purpose of the protests is “to draw world attention to the flagrant xtussian breach of the Potsdam agreement on the disarming of Germany.”