SOVIET ANNEXATION

Grey River Argus, 26 August 1946, Page 5

SOVIET ANNEXATION

GERMAN INDUSTRIES In the Russian Zone (Rec. 9.40). LONDON, August 24. “The Russians', without any official announcement, have taken over, as Soviet property, more than two hundred of the most important industrial works in their zone in Germany," says the Observer’s Berlin correspondent. “This appears to be a decisive Nep towards the Soviet’s permanent economic annexation of the zone. The industries which have, thus' far, been declared as belonging to the S'.K.T.B.J.F. (Corporation of Soviet Industries) include the following.— The Igfarben Works in Saxony. The Zeiss Optical Works in Jena. Krupps Works at Magdeburg. Most of the zone’s chemical industry. All of the iron and steel plants in the zone. Between three and four hundred thousand Germans thus become Russian State employees. The transfer is still going on, under a Russian-de-vised administrative arrangement, whereby decisions in last spring’s referendum in Saxony have’ been expanded to enable the transfer to the Russians of the biggest works, whether or not they belonged to war criminals, or .to armament ' industrialists.

For publishing “empty vulgar things,” the central committee of the Soviet Party has stopped the publication of the magazine “Leningrad” and ordered the appointment of an editorial board and a new editor for another “Leningrad” magazine, the “Star,” says Pravda. The central committee condemned the publication in these magazines of Kikhail Zeschenke who “depicts th= Soviet people in an ugly caricature and slanderously represents them as primitive, uncultured and stupid with philistine tastes and morals.” It also criticised th e writings of the poetress, Akhmatova, as full of pessimism and decadence.