COMPLETE STALEMATE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27094, 31 May 1949, Page 5

COMPLETE STALEMATE

BERLIN RAILWAY STRIKE NO SIGNS OF SETTLEMENT ; . NZPA—Copyright •_ ' ’ : . BERLIN, May 29. West Berlin's railway strike settled down into .its second week to-day in a complete stalemate, with no sign of a settlement, and with railway traffic on the Helmstedt-Berlin line at a standstill. Meanwhile, Anglo-American air lift planes dropped into Berlin’s three airports at the rate of two every three minutes, and, goods lorries streamed down the autobahn with loads of food and industrial products from Western Germany. > ' No trains have arrived in Berlin since Thursday, and the American railway officials still have no news of 34 trains of coal and food stranded on the single track: railway, many of them carrying perishable goods. The striking independent' railway union, which is blamed by the Soviet railway authorities for the traffic holdup, has turned down an offer by the Soviet zone railway chief, Willi Kreikemeyer, that they receive 60 per cent, of their wages in west marks. Riyal Constitution The three western military Governors have approved, with minor modifications, the electoral law for West Germany drawn up by the Bonn Constituent Assembly. The German “ People’s Congress ” met to-day in the Russian sector of Berlin to adopt a rival constitution to that drawn up by the Bonn Constituent Assembly. Two hundred delegates from Western Berlin and Western Germany sat among the 1500 delegates. Soviet officials also attended. The congress will prepare a manifesto for the Foreign Ministers in Paris. The veteran Communist leader, Wilhelm Pieck, opening the congress, violently attacked the Western Powers’ proposals made at the Foreign Ministers’ Council for a new organisation for Germany. He said they were “ intended to undermine our self-respect.” The Christian Democrat leader, Otto Nuschke said the congress wanted “ a return to the Potsdam Agreement, Germany’s economic and political unification, a unified currency, a speedy peace treaty, and the withdrawal of all occupation troops.” “Playing With War” Nuschke, denouncing the American in Berlin, Brigadiergeneral Frank Howiey, as responsible for the railway strike, said General Howiey was playing with war, and 'demanded that the American Government should recall him. Nuschke said that General Howley’s expulsion of the Soviet-controlled railway police from stations in the American sector could have set the whole machinery of the Atlantic Treaty in motion. The former Luftwaffe officer, Gene ral Vincent Mueller, chief of staff of the Soviet zone police, told the congress that “ a wall of contempt must be erected around the Western Powers.” Erich Ollenhauei*, vice-chairman of the Social Democratic Parity, told •> party congress to-night that civil war would break out in Germany if the occupation forces withdrew without the previous dissolution of the Soviet zone police forces.