EAST GERMANS WITHDRAWN

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31775, 4 September 1968, Page 15

EAST GERMANS WITHDRAWN

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) PRAGUE, September 3. All East German troops were quietly withdrawn from Czechoslovakia on a Soviet recommendation a few days after the invasion by the armies of five Warsaw Pact Powers, the New York Times News Service reported.

Authoritative military sources said the Soviet Union recommended the East German withdrawal when Moscow realised that the presence of East German troops in a foreign country could be construed as a violation of the 1945 Potsdam Agreement, which banned German rearmament.

The sources said that for broader reasons of its German policy, the Soviet Union was anxious to maintain the appearances of full legality and observance of the Potsdam pact, signed by the Soviet Union, the United States, Britain and France after the defeat of Nazi Germany. While both East and West Germany have subsequently developed their own military establishments—East Germany belongs to the Warsaw Pact and West Germany to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation—the Soviet Union apparently wants for long-range reasons to avoid at this time the presence of East German troops in Czechoslovakia. Consequently, the two East German divisions that entered

this country at dawn on August 21, were removed from Czechoslovakia within three days, the military sources said.

With the departure of the East Germans, Czechoslovakia remains occupied by more than 600,000 Soviet, Polish, Hungarian and Bulgarian troops.