SOVIET MAY CLOSE WEST POWERS BORDERS IN GERMANY: 80-MAN’S-LAND ZONE

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22669, 21 June 1948, Page 5

SOVIET MAY CLOSE WEST POWERS BORDERS IN GERMANY: 80-MAN’S-LAND ZONE

(N.Z.P.A. —Reuter —Copyright.)

(11.25 a.m.)

LONDON, June 20,

Russian troops and German police have formed a no-man’s-land along the whole of the western demarcation line in Germany 12 to 25 miles wide, according to the German news agency Dena.

The agency also quoted confidential reports that the Russians plan to close the frontier suddenly and

completely early tomorrow

lii Moscow, the newspaper Pravda said today that the western German currency reform had created the “prerequisites for the complete political separation of the western zones.

“The inter-zonal borders will now be more like State frontiers than lines of demarcation,” it added.

British transport officials in Berlin said that the Russians had reduced rail freight bearing supplies for Berlin’s population by 40 per cent, by the insistence upon rigidly inspecting cargoes and train crews.

Money changing went off smoothly for the most part but in Hamburg the money arrived two hours late at the exchange offices. The police had trouble in holding back the impatient crowds. The British authorities at a British border post on the road to Berlin confiscated from German travellers to and from the Soviet zone all their old marks except 60. The Russians turned some of them back but the British authorities refused to return their money. A frontier control officer explained that it was a measure meant to hit the black market operators. It is a heavy blow to Germans residing in the Soviet zone where the old marks are still good. It is announced officially in Frankfurt that western Germany’s new marks will be sold inside Germany for 30 United States cents each or at the rate of 13 1-3 marks for each British pound. The announcement did not say what would be the international exchange rate. The officials explained that the new mark’s commercial value would probably be determined by its effects on the German economy. The old reichsmark was sold inside Germany at 40 to the British pound. The new rate is approximately the mark’s official pre-war value-

Some household goods have been removed from the ration list as the first step towards stabilising the Germany economy which the money reform is designed to accomplish, English cigarettes slumped to onetenth of their former value on the west German market today. Coffee prices dropped almost as much. Theatre prices also plunged down.

Sources in close touch with the Soviet Economic Commission said that currency reform in the Soviet zone of Germany is not expected for several weeks. These sources said that the Russians plan to put adhesive stamps on the currency to the face value of 28,000,000,000 marks this week as a “protective measure” to prevent the devalued old marks coming in from the western zones. The stamping is expected to reduce the note circulation by over 90 per cent.