Conscription Expected In East Germany

Press, Volume C, Issue 29624, 21 September 1961, Page 15

Conscription Expected In East Germany

(N.Z.P.A.-Reutcr—Copyright)

BERLIN, September 20.

. The East German Volkskammer (Parliament) is expected to approve the introduction of compulsory military service when it meets today for its first session since the closure of the East-West Berlin border on August 13.

According to usually reliable sources, compulsory service will be introduced for the first time by one clause of a “law for the defence of the German Democratic Republic,” which was discussed by the Council of Stats yesterday. A communique issued after the council meeting said the new law would be passed to the Volkskammer for approval, but gave no further details.

East Germany is thought to be the only Warsaw Pact member State which has never had compulsory military service and has relied on a volunteer Army. Until recently the Army was limited to an official figure of 90,000 men. Escapes to West

Nine persons, including an East German policeman in uniform, fled from sealed off East Berlin to the Western sector last night. West Berlin police reported. A husband and wife, their two teenage sons, and the

boys' 73-year-old grandfather jumped from the first storey of a house on the border into a sheet held by firemen in the West Berlin street below. Ten minutes later, another married couple and their three-year-old daughter jumped to the West in the same street. The policeman ran across another part of the border in south-east Berlin. Among other flights reported by the West Berlin police is the case of a family of four, including two children, aged 12 and 18. They slid down a rope from the second floor of a house on the East-West border in Berlin. One man, aged 56, and his wife, 46, jumped from the third floor of a house into a West Berlin fireman’s net. In another incident, a young East Berliner was about to let himself down a rope from a third floor window when Communist police broke into his flat. He swung himself to a neighbour’s window and jumped when a Communist policeman threatened to shoot. West Berlin firemen were below, but they did not have time to spread their net, and

the young man was seriouslyinjured. To prevent escapes the Communists have built new barriers along the wall they erected on the East-West Berlin border on August 13 to halt the flight of refugees. In open country they have dug trenches 6ft deep and 6ft wide.

At some points they built new walls that kept even Communist border police from approaching within 10 yards of the border. The British United Press said that East Germany has warned East Berliners that they face arrest by the People’s Police if they get too close to the East-West Berlin border. The East German Ministry of the Interior said last night that the police had been ordered to proceed "without pity” against West Berliners who came too close to the wall.

The new warning was issued, the Ministry said, because the West Berlin City Council had allowed certain elements, particularly youths, to stage “provocations” against the East German border police.