Troops Stand By in Ruhr Unrest Area

Northern Advocate, 29 March 1947, Page 7

Troops Stand By in Ruhr Unrest Area

’(Received 11.30 a.m.) IN riots against the food shortage, demonstrators at Dusseldorf ejected the occupants of a British Military Government car and threw the car into a lake.

LONDON, March 28

Light armoured cars appeared in the suburbs early in the afternoon and British military police were on duty for the first time during the present troubles.

Similar demonstrations occurred in Essen, Witten, Solingen and Wetter. A Dusseldorf delegation handed the city commandant a resolution declaring that the workers would reach the end of their physical resources unless immediate relief was given. The delegation asked that all available food should be sent from other areas and that Britain ask the control

council to end zonal frontiers to pave i the way for an all-German planned economy. A control commission official at Dusseldorf said: “The people seem to be looking for trouble now. Almost anything would start large-scale violence.” 800 BRITISH

A crowd booed and sneered at uniformed Britons on the streets, refusing to budge when lorries tried to get through. Young men smashed the windows of a British-occupied building. British authorities stated that “a political party” inspired the riots. German sources said it was the Communist Party. In Hamburg the British Command stated that part of the cargoes of ships arriving at Hamburg and Bremen are to be diverted to the North Rhine and Westphalia district, thus tiding over the next four weeks’ food needs. The. British Control Commission food division officer in Berlin said the British were rushing bread grains from north Germany to the Ruhr trouble areas.

The full bread ration should be available in the first days of April. COINCIDENCE

A senior British official told a Press conference at Dusseldorf that the British had troops standing by to move at short notice in the Ruhr area of unrest. This, however, was the normal practice.

. The British believed that there Would be no more demonstrations. He added that it was an extraordinary coincidence that the demonstrations had come at a time when they were likely to have the most effect on the Moscow discussions. There was no evidence that Com-

munist or other political agitators or- / ganised the demonstrations, but it seemed obvious that someone had attempted to take advantage of the special circumstances. He discounted suggestions that the trouble came from former Nazis. The Associated Press correspondent says the demonstrators stoned a British military telephone exchange and broke 59 windows. There were no casualties. . ~,