URANIUM MINES

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22586, 15 March 1948, Page 5

URANIUM MINES

WORKING FOR RUSSIA’ 100,000 GERMANS USED BERLIN, Jan. 30. The biggest booming industrial enterprise in the Soviet occupation zone of Germany today is the uranium mines in southern Saxony, which the Russians are working with a labour force now estimated at nearly 100,000 German men and women. Penetration into the uranium fields—• in the Erzebirge (ore mountains) near the Saxony-Czechoslovakia frontier is forbidden to personnel of the Western Allied nations. It is difficult for Germans who are not employed there. But recently some expanded accounts of Russian operations there have been brought out of the “forbidden area” by German miners who deserted and fled westward and by travellers who came through the region. These accounts were related to and published by Die Welt, the official German newspaper of the British Military Government. • They indicate that in the last two years the Russians have almost totally transformed the economy of a region once devoted to holiday and manufacturing enterprises to an all-engrossing job of digging for uranium even to mine shafts long deserted as playedout or uneconomical. Forced Labour

Die Welt said that the Russians were conducting the uranium enterprise through a Soviet company named “Vitriol" which “despite denials, is known to be continuing the use of forced labour —labour sometimes compelled under threat that food ration cards will be withheld from the families of recalcitrant men.” Conscripted workers, the newspaper said, are brought from even the most distant points of the Russian zone—the island of Rugen in the Baltic Sea. Working conditions in the mining area were reported to be improving, but still poor. Whereas some public advertisements for miners have claimed that pay was as high as 2800 marks (£BS) per month. Die Welt said this was greatly exaggerated. However, wages were called relatively good and the Russians are distributing special bonuses in foods, fats and tobaccos.

“However,” the newspaper added, “there is a catch in these premiums. Whoever becomes ill immediately loses all special grants and is reduced to the normal ration. There is no excuse here for sickness, exhaustion or age.” “There are many accidents in the mines because safety precautions are lacking,” the newspaper reported. “For instance, workers are required to return to their places only a half- t hour after blasting—before poisonous monoxide gases and stoqe dust have passed from the shafts.” The Neue Zeitung, official German newspaper of the American Military Government, reported recently that 96 German workers were killed in an accident in one of the uranium mine shafts. The newspaper attributed the accident to lack of safety devices. The Russian authorities never publicly disputed this report. “Despite lack of precautions,” Die Welt continued, “the work is pressed with feverish ,haste and mostly with insufficient tools and machinery, especially in the small mines and test tunnels. Sometimes miners have to work knee-deep in the water of halfflooded tunnels. Width of Belt

The uranium belt, according to Die Welt, is now 38 miles wide across the Erzgebirge. Once centred around Aue, Schneeberg and Schvvarzenberg, near the Czechoslovakia frontier, it has spread northward and eastward to the regions of Freiberg and Freital, all to the northeast of Chemnitz. “The originally-reported goal was for 20,000 workers, but it is now reliably estimated that there are five times that' many employed in the mines,” the newspaper said. “German geologists are generally sceptical about the future of mining here, though some new mineral finds have been reported near Schneeberg, Wolkenstein _ and Marienberg, which seems to indicate that with improved methods the search for uranium ores and rare metals may result in something,” Die Welt reported. “At any rate, for good or bad, the well-known picture of the Erzgebirge is undergoing a profound and growing change.”