GERMAN “POLICE TROOPS” TRAIN FOR SOVIET SHADOW ARMY

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22820, 15 December 1948, Page 12

GERMAN “POLICE TROOPS” TRAIN FOR SOVIET SHADOW ARMY

(From David Brown, Reuter s Correspondent)

BERLIN (By Air Mail). A report that 4500 “police troops” are now undergoing intensive training in a single training camp in the Soviet zone province of Thuringia is the latest in a long series of reports received in Berlin describing the building up of a “shadow army” in the Soviet zone.

The arrival from Russia, in midOctober. of the former Stalingrad General. Walter von Seydlitz, and three other former Nazi Generals was widely heralded here as marking the definite organisation of a large-scale para-mili-tary police force under the direction of Seydlitz and other former German officers.

The belief that this organisation is proceeding steadily persists in spite of a categorical denial, issued by the Soviet information bureau, that Seydlitz had come to Germany.

Since then, other reports of Seydlitz and his henchmen have gained circulation, including one of an attempt on the life of Seydlitz, former chief subordinate of the Stalingrad army leader, Field Marshal Paulus, and another of the flight to safetv in the western zones of one of the Seydlitz Party. These reports cannot be confirmed from Soviet sources.

Np to 400,00 Men

The belief is widespread in Germany that the Russians are speeding up the development of an armed police organisation of at least 400,000 men who can take over military control of the Soviet zone and enforce Communist discipline in the event of a withdrawal of Soviet occupation troops. According to this theory, Soviet troops would be withdrawn only after diplomatic agreement had been reached for the simultaneous withdrawal of American, British and French troops from Germany.

The para-military police organisation would then be the Soviet Government's instrument for enforcing Soviet policies on the population of the Eastern zone and would give support of force and arms to the Communist-dominated Socialist Unity Party. Without such backing, Western observers believe, the party and all Soviet influence in Eastern Germany would quickly collapse.

The model for the projected policy in Eastern Germany is believed to be the Soviet withdrawal of occupation forces from Northern Korea, leaving wellorganised and well-disciplined Communist organisations to ensure the continuance of Soviet policy and enforce the execution of Soviet directives. “Enlarged Every Day”

The most authoritative backing for these beliefs so far has come from the American Military Governor, General Lucious D. Clay. In Washington recently, General Clay stated that the Russians had a Communist-indoctrinated police force in their zone numbering between 200,000 and and 300,000 and that this force “was being enlarged every day.”

Some Berlin reports have slated that detachments of the new force have been located in former army and displaced persons barracks close to the capital. There, they are said to be undergoing part of their military training.

These reports are impossible to check in authoritative quarters because of the ban on movement of Allied personnel into the Soviet zone. They have come thick and fast, however, from German sources who have greater freedom _ot movement and closer contacts with points in the Soviet zone, and are too plentiful and too circumstantial to disregard.

According to the latest of these reports, in Thuringia, 4500 men from the police training units in Erfurt, Ilmenau and other centres have been moved into a training camp at Ohrdruff. Ohrdruir is a small industrial centre in Southern Thuringia not far from the north-east-ern boundary of the United Statec zone.

Tank Regiment in Training

The reports state that during the summer the camp was a training centre for Soviet Army tank units and motorised units, who returned to their Thuringian garrison in mid-October. Among them were a tank regiment which returned with its 35 Stalin tanks by rail from Ohrdurff to its garrison at Saalfeld.

This movement, the reports add, was especially impressed on Germans in the vicinity because the Soviet troops displayed a “tough” attitude towards the German population, robbing them wherever the train stopped en route. Erfurt, in particular, was aware that the training troops had passed through. German railwayment of the Saalfeld shunting yards were said to have Packed up on the mornings of October 12, 13 and 14 many loooted, torn and battered suitcases and boxes bearing the label “Erfurt Railway Baggage Office. Recruiting of polide for the new force is now reported to be going on intensively throughout Thuringia. Candidates are sought between the ages of 17 and 35. A special decree of the Thuringian Ministry of the Interior provided that candidates under 21 no longer require paternal consent to enlist. Germans declare that this is a violation of traditional German law. Inducements for Recruits

The recruiting inducements held out to the younger element include a first category food card, pay of 300 Eastern marks per month, ten cigarettes a day —compared with the allotment of 30 to 60 a month in the Eastern zone and sometimes as low as eight a month in the West—a free uniform and ' freedom from winter hardships.” These attractions are effective when superimposed on the natural inclination of German youth to put on a uniform and play at being soldiers again, lh c new recruits undergo three months theoretical and three months practical training. The theoretical training covers political indoctrination and some study of general police _ rules lhe practical training is acquired at framing camps like the one at Ohrdrufl. At the end of the six months period, the candidate is appointed a tuliy fledged member of the force. Young men who are under a political cloud because of previous charges of Nazism are willingly accepted as candidates, but given a training “detour. They are first required to serve a three months’ probationary period in a railway police unit. If they complete this successfully, the Thuringian reports state they' are admitted at once to the police training camps thus by-passing the theoretical course.