ALLIES DISAGREE

New Zealand Herald, Volume 82, Issue 25357, 12 November 1945, Page 5

ALLIES DISAGREE

CO NT I! (I I; ]N t; CIJMAN V CENTRALISATION POLICY (Urcd. fi.-'Mi p.m.) LONDON, Nov. 10 The Allied Control Council has decided that the four member Governments should he informed that the Council is unable to agree on a law governing the formation of trade unions in Germany. Renter's correspondent says the failure is due to French opposition to a trade union organisation covering all of Germany. The Associated Press correspondent says the French delegate announced that his Government took the same stand 011 this issue as on that of a central Government for Germany—that it is premature, perhaps dangerous, to permit the Germans to have central organisations. British Police Being Recruited Nine hundred British policemen would he recruited voluntarily for service in Germany, Austria and Greece, said the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Mr J. B. flynd, in the House of Commons. They would supervise the German police force which was replacing the Nazi police organisation. The present British police force in Germany, numbering 180, he added, was entirely inadequate. The policy of the United States control authorities in Germany is stiffening against concessions to Russia without reciprocation, says the Associated Press correspondent in Frankfurt. It is learned also that the United States is making clear to France that centralisation of German authority in accordance with the Potsdam agreement is to go on with or without French agreement. A similar stand has also been adopted to a large extent by Britain and Russia. Sanctioned by Washington This policy was fully sanctioned in Washington during the visit there by General Eisenhower's deputy, Lieuten-ant-General Lucius Clay, and his political adviser, Mr R. D. Murphy, who reported on the general situation of the United States Military Government in Germany. General Clay and Mr Murphy returned from Washington yesterday and will attend a meeting of the Allied Control Council in Berlin today. The United States_ attitude regarding concessions to Russia has been gradually hardening since the Teheran conference in December, 1943. The Control Council has brought many fundamental differences into the open. The Russians have made no major compromises toward settlement of some problems, while the Western Allies have given way many points. It is feared that this policy has been interpreted as weakness. United States officers and men in Germany are unfavourable to giving Russia the atomic bomb secrets in view of the Russians' rigid refusal to allow Americans to visit territory in their zone.

Interview With Zhukov Marshal Zhukov, head of the Russian occupation forces in Germany, believes that the Allied occupation of Germany can be completed in less than ten years if the Germans show the right attitude. He expressed this opinion to an American soldier, Staff-Sergeant Harold Kempner, who gate-crashed a Russian reception for General Eisenhower in Berlin. Staff-Sergeant Kempner. who was born in Russia, speaks the Russian language fluently. He reports his interview in the American Military Government weekly newspaper. Marshal Zhukov, he says, said that the occupation could quickly be completed if the Germans were co-operative and displayed an earnest desire to rid themselves of any taint of militarism and Nazi ideology. PATTON IN CHARGE ABSENCE OF EISENHOWER (Rerrl. 0.30 p.m.) LONDON, Nov. 10 General G. S. Patton, commander of the United States Fifteenth Army, by virtue of his seniority has been appointed Commanding General of the United States forces in Europe in the absence of General Eisenhower. General Eisenhower lias left for Paris on his way to America, where he will testify before a Congressional Committee. The nature of the testimony is not revealed, but the Associated Press correspondent in Frankfurt points out that Genera! Eisenhower is one of the strongest advocates for merging the American Army, Navy and Air Forces into one Department of Defence, and it is assumed that he is supporting the Chief of Staff, General G. C. Marshall, in the case for consolidation. REPARATIONS CLAIMS FRANCE PRESENTS BIG BILL PARIS, Nov. 10 France's claims for reparations against Germany amount to £625 for every French man, woman and child. The total French reparations bill is £21,185,000,000. equal to 48 970,000,000.000 francs, at 19)5 values, or 12 times the deficit in the current French Budget. France's (claims were submitted to the Inter-Allied Reparations Conference, which opened yesterday at the Palais de Luxembourg. Britain, America, France, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Greece, Yugoslavia, Norway, Czechoslovakia, India, Egypt and Denmark are taking part. HESS CANNOT REMEMBER LONDON. Nov. 9 Rudolf Mess, former deputy to Hitler, and now awaiting trial at Nuremberg as a war criminal, was last night shown a li lin of himself and other Nazis to try to improve his memory, says Renter's correspondent in Nuremberg. Hess said he recognised Goering and others when he heard their names mentioned. "1 must have been there, he added, "but I don't remember.'