ELECTIONS IN GERMANY

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

ELECTIONS IN GERMANY

ALLIED PROPOSALS REJECTED REPLY’ BY 7 EAST GERMAN LEADER (Rec. 10 p.m.) BERLIN. May 27. The East German Deputy-Prime Minister (Mr Walter Ulbricht) to-day rejected a Western proposal for free elections to an all-German Parliament. Mr Ulbricht, speaking at the “Congress of Young Fighters for Peace,” said that Britain, the United States and France should abide by the Potsdam agreement which provided for German unification. He added that the Allied proposal made in Notes to the Soviet commander in Germany .was unnecessary Earlier the three Western Allied High Commissioners in Germany had written to the Soviet Control Commission chief (General V. I. Chuikov) proposing steps to achieve the political and economic unity of Germany. The commissioners stated that, they were ready to share with the Soviet authorities the framing of an electoral law for all German elections. They called on Russia to join in talks aimed at unifying Germany on this basis. . Each occupying Power sent an identical letter. With it was a declaration from the three Foreign Ministers giving their conditions under which German unity could be achieved. The statement of the three Foreign Ministers laid down the following conditions for a unified Germany and a return to four-Power control: (1) A freely-elected all-German Government. (2) Individual freedom of movement. freedom from arbitrary arrest and detention, freedom of association and assembly, freedom of speech, press, and radio throughout Germany. (3) Freedom of action throughout Germany for all democratic political parties. (4) The independence of the judiciary. z (5) The prohibition, throughout Germany, of political secret police

and police formations constituting a military force. (6) An assurance of German economic unity through action by a German Government on matters such as a unified currency and customs, and through a quadripartite agreement on matters such as the cessation of reparations from current production, and prohibited and limited industries.

(7) The -establishment of a quadripartite supervision through the Four-Power Commission exercising its reserve powers in such a way as to permit the German Government to function effectively.