‘Vested Interests’In Posts In Germany

Northern Advocate, 19 December 1949, Page 4

‘Vested Interests’ln Posts In Germany

NEW YORK, Sun. (10 a.m.)—“Vested interests” of the British and American Military Government oflicials in Germany were interfering sadly with his mission “to sell faith in Western Germany” to the American public, said Max Brauer, Mayor of Hamburg, who is on a month’s tour of the United States.

Brauer, who gave up his adopted American citizenship to become Mayor of Hamburg, said he was completely convinced that Nazism was dead in Germany, and that there was less antiSemitism there than in any other country in the world.

Americans did i.ot believe this because of a series of exactly contrary reports sent from Germany by American newspaper correspondent and Allied Military Government officials. They would lose their “fat posts” in Germany through reduction of the occupational personnel. PRO-PEACE LAW The (ext was issued last night of a new law signed by the Allied High Commissioners earlier in the day for the continued demilitarisation of Western Germany and the elimination of Nazism.

It reiterates the determination of the occupying powers to see that Germany develops along peaceful lines. The new law continues the prohibition of any activity which teaches, directly or indirectly, (he theory, principles or technique of war, or is intended to prepare for any warlike activity or to foster the re-emergence of militarism. PROHIBITED It also prohibits, ur.iess expressly authorised by the High Commission, the manufacture, sale, distribution, possession or use of any article or device with the intention of facilitating any of these activities. Military and National Socialist organisations also remain prohibited, a:: well as organisations which require their members to be war veterans.

Penalties for infringement include imprisonment for life, or a fine or both.

The law was passed only a few hours after the West German Parliament had inconclusively debated the German rearmament question. BUILT HELICOPTER

A German who built a helicopter, which he flew inside a garage, will be charged in an American Occupation Court with violating the Allied regulations which prohibit Germans from building aircraft or doing research in aerodynamics. The helicopter, wnich took seven month to build, looks like an oversized wheelchair. It is topped by a small engine and two propellers and mounted on four bicycle wheels.