SINGLE ZONE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27517, 11 October 1950, Page 7

SINGLE ZONE

Defence Of Western Germany FUTURE ALLIED NEEDS N ZP A—Reuter—Copyright BERLIN. Oct. 9. The United States High Commissioner in Germany, Mr John McCloy, said today that 175 Soviet divisions were casting a pall over Western Europe. “ The Russians,” he said, “ have stepped up their propaganda. They have declared a fifth column war against Western Germany and Western Europe, but the spirit of the West is prevailing and will prevail if all of us keep on our toes.” Mr McCloy, who was addressing a conference of 800 United States High Commission officials at Frankfurt, disclosed that for the purpose of defence, zonal boundaries in West Germany will be disregarded when Western Allied troops there are reinforced. “ There will be an inevitable union of our operations with the British and French zones,” he said. The French High Commissioner, M. Andre Francois-Poncet, told the conference that some Frenchmen feared that Germany may do a volte face towards the east after extracting as much aid as possible from the Western Allies. He said that that risk must be undertaken because in the conduct of diplomacy choices must be made that seemed to be the lesser of the risk. _

A says that the present division of Germany among the three Western Powers was made in 1945 to meet immediate nee.ds and bore no relation to any future defence needs. The British were left with three-quarters of the northern plain, through which any land attack from the east would most probably come. The French were withdrawn from the defence picture almost entirely. The accommodation of reinforcements in the north-east will mean ,a headache for the Allies already burdened with many thousands of penniless refugees and people expelled from the east who live in billets, camps, and former German barracks. The Allies have set up a ThreePower Committee to advise the German Government on questions arising from defence and especially on accommodation for new troops. A message from Bonn says: The West German Minister of the Interior, Dr Gustav Heinemann, resigned today from Dr Konrad Adenaeur’s Cabinet after a dispute over the creation of a mobile police force.