EAST GERMAN RIOTS

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27072, 22 June 1953, Page 9

EAST GERMAN RIOTS

‘ Russian Troops Reinforced I (Rec. 8 p.m.) BERLIN, June M. The West Berlin newspaper “Telei graf” said today that Russian firing - squads shot two people after the riots I in Magdeburg. Workers at several big State-owned - works in East Germany had gone on , strike. The newspaper reported that the Walter Ulbricht chemical works at ■ Leuna were on fire and the workers ! employed at these works, which manui facture-synthetic rubber, had gone on strike. Rioting and strikes in East Germany today were so widespread that Soviet reinforcements had come from as far as Poland to quell them. Major-General Thomas Timberman. United States Commandant in Berlin, said today that there were 25,000 Soviet troops in East Berlin. He said the demonstrations in East Berlin had been entirely spontaneous, and he denied that the Western Powers had planned them or incited the crowds. General Timberman said United States Army Headquarters in Europe had stopped Americans travelling to Berlin for non-duty purposes “as a precautionary measure.” The East Berlin Radio said today that three checkpoints were open at the Soviet sector boundaries .of the city for East Berliners to return home from West Berlin. The radio said: “In spite of rumours spread in West Berlin that all returning East Berliners are being loaded on police trucks and carried away to an unknown destination, numerous people crossed into the Soviet sector They expressed joy and surprise at the understanding with which the' were received by the People’s Police.’ City Now Quiet Meanwhile East Berlin is quiet to day after this week’s uprising. A Cabinet meeting of the East Ger man Government last night decided V speed up the implementing of the re cent drastic Government liberalising measures to help the middle classes to support private farmers and busi

nessmen. and to stop coercive farm collectivisation.

During the Cabinet meeting, the Deputy-Premier, Mr Otto Nuschke. arrived after having been released from detention in West Berlin, where he had been dragged by rioters on Wednesday.

The East German News Agency, A.D.N., said today that it learned that church services would be held “as hitherto.’’

The announcement made no reference to the martial law proclaimed by the Soviet authorities in East Berlin which forbids all assemblies oi

more than three persons. The East German Cabinet in a communique on the riots thanked “aT who in close co-operation with thf government helped to foil the antinational actions of Western provoca teurs and to render them ineffective.* Three men swam across the rive’ Spree from the Soviet sector to Wes Berlin today to escape arrest for tak mg part m the riots. A pblice spokesman said that thf three—two East Berliners and one West Berliner—had been stranded ir the eastern sector by the Soviet **iror ring” placed round it. Wave of Arrests The three men confirmed reports that a wave of arrests was sweeping East Berlin and that the police hao arrested hundreds of persons an reprisals, for the demonstrations. ..The Tass Agency today described the Western Powers’ protest at Russian methods of putting down the East Berlin riots as an expression of “false indignation.” The statement, broadcast over the Moscow Radio and published in the Russian newspapers/said the protest was intended * r to conceal the truth and escape responsibility for the provocateurs who were sent into the democratic sector of Berlin to organ - ise arson and street disorders.” Tass said that in order to restore °rder , the Soviet authorities were obliged to apply military measures last week. The Moscow press today accused President Eisenhower of meddling in the Berlin situation. A Tass message said that Berlin circles denounce Mr Eisenhower’s 50,000,000 dollars aid to West Berlin as ‘a clumsy attempt to encourage the American agents of West Berlin whose adventures were a fiasco.” __ A dispatch from Berlin in the “New York Times’’ today said that the study Ox the timing, methods and slogans used in the East Berlin uprising pointed to the existence of a workers’ underground organisation in East Germany.

The dispatch said the uprising in East Berlin and th£ strikes in provincial industrial centres could have been organised and directed only by men of vast experience in conspiracy and direct action.