Russians Re-settle Two Million German Peasants in Soviet Zone

Grey River Argus, 28 October 1948, Page 10

Russians Re-settle Two Million German Peasants in Soviet Zone

BERLIN, Cry. Airmail). Nearly 2,000,000 persons have been settled on the land in the Soviet zone of Germany as the result of land reform since the end of the war. according to official figures published here. “The distribution of land lias now been completed, the new holdings have been entered in the registers, and the new peasants have all received title deeds to their iand,' stated Herr Wilhelm Duelling, German head of the Land Reform Department of the Soviet zone. . . Reviewing the three whicn have passed since the Land Reform £-rogrumme began in September 19 ib Herr Boelling said: “Unde: the rc.orm 030,000 families totalling r.u90,;Ct) persons have been settled on the land. The new peasants, who were extremely poorly provided with animals and machinery in 1945, as a result of tho war, are increasing then •li-ocks every day. At present the new small holders possess 560,000 cows, more than 150,000 horses and machinery of all sorts in steadily inci easing quantities. Difficulties in the way of carrying out the building programme lor the new farms are also being overcome. Tn Saxony, Tachsen-Anhalt and Thuringia, the plan for new buildings will be completed this year, though transoort and labour shortages tn Brandenburg and Mecklenburg will delay the fulfilment of the plan there.” In the course of the Land Reform about 3,000,000 hectares of land (some 7.500, OC;9 acres) were confiscated from what Herr Doelling described as “Junkers, war criminals and Nazis.” More than half of this area was arable land, the remainder largely forest. o The land was not a free gift. The price was fixed at the proceeds of one rye crop per hectare. Credits amounting to* 6000 marks per ’■ farm (about £3OO sterling at the pre-war rates) were granted to those new farmers who needed them. Most of those settled on the land were expelled from Poland and Czechoslovakia, but considerable numbers of agricultural workers and “landless peasants’ whose original hohies were in the provinces of the Eastern Zone also benefited by the reform. The Soviet authorities have carried through the reform not only as an economic measure to get ail land under production and to settle those expelled, but also as a means of getting rid of the big estates which they regarded as a breeding ground for Juhkerdom, Prussianism, and militarism.

The original orders for land reform stressed that it was being undertaken to “end the overlordship of the Junkers who have been the main bastion of reaction and Fascism.” As in other parts Ox .Eastern Europe, the domin- : nt Communist Tarty lias gamed a considerable body of peasant supporters by carrying out land reform so thoroughly and quickly. The now peasant proprietors,- whatever their previous political convictions, tend to sup.porLthe present regime if only because they fear that any. other regime would take away their land and return it to its former owners The pro-Communist peasants m the Soviet Zone arc now banded together in a newly created "Democratic Feasant Party,” sponsored by the Communists as a nominally nonCommunist body likely to spilt the non-Communist vote in any future elections. Tho Communists have also found land reform in the Eastern zone a very useful propaganda point in the Western zones of Germany. They can point to the fact that only just over 1,000,DU0 hectares (3,500,900 acres) have been earmarked for land reform in the West compared with 3,000,000 in the East—and that ir West even this comparatively small steo has still, in the main, only reached the paper stage.