COMMUNISTS MARCH IN BERLIN

Press, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 26124, 29 May 1950, Page 7

COMMUNISTS MARCH IN BERLIN

Fears Of Disturbances Not Borne Out

ORDERLY PARADE HELD IN SOAKING RAIN

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 12.30 a.rn.) LONDON, May 27. The early fears of the Western Occupation authorities of a putsch—based on Communist threats in January that young Communists would storm Berlin—were buried to-day. In the Whitsun Rally, the Eastern police have done as much or more than the Allies to prevent the marchers from the East from straying into West Berlin Eastern and Western police co-operated closely on the traditionally troublesome mid-city boundary, but the weather discouraged any Western anti-Communists who might have come early to jeer at the Eastern demonstrators. The rain slackened during the morning, but the paraders were soaking wet.

Like army cadets on review, the Communist “Blueshirts” were ordered to keep firm ranks. They moved forward like automatons—a sea of blue figures with tousled bare heads. Cheers thundered in the packed Lustgarten as Mr Wilhelm Fieck, the 74-year-old Communist president of East Germany, mounted the tribunal before the gigantic portraits of himself and Mr Stalin. Mr Pieck, for years an expatriate in Moscow, said that 8,000,000 of the 18,000,000 East Germans under the Soviet occupation had signed the Russian-sponsored world resolution to ban the atom and hydrogen bombs. He described Mr Stalin as “the greatest and best friend of the German people.” Delegations of young Communists from the Soviet and from Communist China occupied places of honour near Mr Pieck.

BROADCAST BY CHANCELLOR

The West German Chancellor (Dr. Konrad Adenauer) has warned German youths against rash acts at the Communist rally. In a broadcast read for him last night he described the rally as a large-scale attempt to make people in the Soviet Zone get used to a “legalised" state of unlawfulness to estrange them from their brothers and sisters in the West and bring to them “an organised lack of freedom.” In the meantime, according to the Associated Press, Communist leaders have transformed East Berlin into an amusement park for nearly 400.000 young Germans. With cheers and cries of “Long Live Stalin.” the Communists yesterday began a 12-hour programme of sports, festi-

yals concerts, and pro-Soviet speeches to dazzle the “Free German Youth,” known by its German initials as “F.J.D.” Of 100 foreign Communist guests, the East German officials reserved the heartiest welcome for 13 delegates from the Soviet Union's Komsomol (Younp- Communists). They claimed that more than 377.000 F.D.J. members had collected in the Russian sector by midnight on Friday, and more than 100.000 would arrive yesterdays the United States authorities yesterday cancelled all leave for their troops and put them on a partial stand-by basis. British armoured cars, and military policemen armed with machine-guns moved into positions at danger spots.