SOVIET TRAINING OF GERMAN EX-PRISONERS IN COMMUNISM

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22820, 15 December 1948, Page 4

SOVIET TRAINING OF GERMAN EX-PRISONERS IN COMMUNISM

(From John Peel, Reuter's Correspondent)

BERLIN (By Air Mail)

E This is the conclusion reached by the £ British controlled newspaper Die Welt. £ followin'? an analysis of reports from £ returned German prisoners of war who £ passed throught the various trainin'? £ camps for the ‘‘army” in the Soviet E Union. £ In recent weeks an increasing mini | tier of these “anti-Fascist cadres" have E been returning to Germany. From the £ accounts of some of them it has been £ possible to obtain details of the develE opment of the ''army" since the Free £ German National Committee was first E organised in Moscow in July 1943. The £ National Committee which was headed £ by Field Marshal Friedrich von Paulus E and General Walter von S.vdlitz. origin- £ ally had purely wartime objectives. £ Using German nationalist slogans E members of the committee attempted £ by means of broadcasts, leaflets, and by £ Parachute jumps behind the German £ front lines, to disorganise the German £ Army and overthrow TTitler. The £ nationalist and non-Marxist angle of £ (he national committee during the war § is shown by the wording of the oath £ sworn by prisoners who had completed £ a cours" in one of the training camps E run hv the committee under close Com- £ munist supervision. The oath ran as E follows: “T. son of the German people. £ swear to bo ready at nil times to fWht E against fascism and to sacrifice mv life I if necessary in this Tight. If I should £ be untrue to this o“lh. mnv 1 be punE isited by the German people,” Only 100,000 Suitable for Training According to the best statistics available not more than 100,000 German - prisoners of war out of the total of £ several million were found suitable to E b? sent to the training camns. although 1 up to,oo per cents,of the prisoners in E some camns registered for courses. E In one enmn. which may be regarded £ as tvnieal. 1100 prisoners answered the ( £ anneal of the national committee in ; £ 1943. hut after they had submitted full i £ details of their past history and been £ interviewed bv German and Russian ] : notitical commissars, onlv 04 of them 1 ’'-ere sent to the training camp at i j Gorki. « ■ Scattered over the whole of Russia ’ j there were 12 of these preliminary 1 ; training camps, with an average of 500 ( j students, each encaged in a four j : month’s course. From these figures it i j is estimated that a total of not more 1 i than 100,000 prisoners have 'passed < ! th.rou"h the training camps. The train- ( I ing given in these camps, which were ' = run on the lines of German Army 1 : camps, with strict discipline, was div- ; : ided into three main parts: 1. German i i and Russian history. 2. National I : Socialism and Fascism, 3. Political i j questions of the day. ( I Tiie text book for Russian history i ; was the Short History of the Common- i : ist Party of the Soviet Union." a stand- • ard text-book in the training of Com- ; munists all over the world. Many Applications Rejected i In the earlier courses, in 1943-43. tho j instructors, mainly German Common- ' ; hts who had been living as emi"res

£ ! n the Soviet Union, stressed that they E did not intend to convert their hearers £ to communism. E Wilhelm Pieek. now chairman of the £ Communist-dominated Socialist Ufiity £ Partv of Germanv, who was one of the £ lecturers, refused to accent the nppliE cations from manv of the trainees who : wanted to join the Communist Party. : At the end of the four month's course £ and after a stiff e. ammation which £ ie eluded an interview with one of the : C-—man Communist leaders in Russia. \ often Walter Ulbricht. now leading : "'eeretieian of the Socialist Unity : Party. fh P trainees were assigned t.o £ further tasks. About 10 per cent of the [ students were found to be unsuitable : and were sent back to norma! prison ■ camns. Approximately 10 per cent more. the most promising students, were sent on to other courses to fit them for responsible tasks. TwentyOva ner rent were sent out to work as nrnna"and'sts and camp activists in oriymor of war camns. and the remainder. over 50 per cent, passed into the Paidus Army nroner. where they wc”e trained ns parachutists partisans and as other specialist squads to fight alongside the Red Army. Selection of Key Personnel Rough estimates indicate that a maximum of 30.009 are still alive in and it is from this relatively sma’i body of men that recruits to nrovide the backbone of the new militarised Russian zone police force are being sought. More important nrobeKlv are the 10.009 ndd officers and men who were selected as key personnel,

The famous “Paulus Army” raised by the Russians frcm the ranks of German prisoners of war in the Soviet Union never totalled more than about 80,000 m:n. Only about 30,000 of these are still in Russia.

• worthy of further training. When (hey were moved on from their basic training camps, these men went to the '"special'' camp at Krasnogcrsk. near Moscow, This camp, popularly known as the "Marxist University" offered the students basically the same sort of training as they had already had in the ordinary training camp. The emphasis, however, was no longer on "anti-fascism'' but definitely Marxist. Here, officers and men for the first time shared the same quarters end food, distinction of rank, which had been rigidly adhered to in the elementary training, were allowed to drop. Beginning with Hegelian philosophy, the students had to assimilate large doses of Marx. Kngels, Feuerbach and Lenin, and even students with degrees in philosophy found the courses exacting. The hi"h point of the training was reached in a sort of open confessional, in which the students had to give a detailed account of their past careers, explaining the motive for each important decision in their lives. The other members of the class cross-questioned the student on his account, probing into it decoly to reveal, if they could, any concealment or inconsistency. Intensive Cross-examinations Some of these cross-examinations las'ed as much as 14 hoiirs at a stretch, and it was not rare for students to break down and confess that they had only allowed themselves to be recruited for the course in the hope that in Ihis way they would be sent back to Germany. It is alleged that all those former German soldiers and officers who have been entrusted with key positions in the Soviet zone have passed through this school. After this advanced course was ended, the students were either sent to technical courses, where they learned how to administer a town, or run a trade union, or whatever other work they were scheduled to do when they returned to Germany. A very small number of thoroughly reliable students, after passing an extraordinarily thorough screening, were sent on to the Lenin School in Moscow, where leading Cominform officials from all over the world are trained. Only about 50 former German prisoners of war in all were sent to the Lenin School and so far none of these is known to', have returned to Germany. Of the approximately 10.000 prisoners who have passed through the "Marxist University," about t 4000 are believed to have returned to Germany. There have been some defections: but the great majority of them are still working in the Soviet zonal administration. The rest are said to be waiting in Russia until they are assigned a task.