ORDERED OUT

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 99, 28 April 1945, Page 8

ORDERED OUT

FRENCH IN STUTTGART

OCCUPATION DISPUTE

(By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright.) R?c- ll!> P-m. LONDON, April 27 The French War Minister Dietlhelm reported to a Cabinet meeting this morning that SHAEF had taken steps to substitute American military government for French military government in Stuttgart, which the French Ist Army captured last week, says Paris radio. Catynet agreed to maintain French military government until an agreement was signed between France and the Allied Governments fixing the extent of the French occupation zone.

Reuters correspondent at SHAEF says that this rebuff of SHAEF. has high-lighted the whole diplomatic muddle, Allied military progress apparently is going faster than Allied organisation.

A SHAEF spokesman refused to comment on the report that SHAEF had ordered the French capturers of Stuttgart to withdraw. He stated that army boundaries during the military operations of the 6th Armp Group are at the discretion of General Devers and the armies are in fluid fighting and sometimes overlap. The correspondent adds that the French attitude is that, as the Big Three have not told France what zones she will occupy after the war, French troops should not be asked to get out from the only important German city they have entered.

The Associated Press correspondent says that why SHAEF should order the French out is not clear from any military viewpoint. The issue, aside from the potential strain on military co-ordination, again raises the whole question of post-war zones.