“WILD WEST” ON THE FRONTIER OF AUSTRIA AND HUNGARY

Wanganui Chronicle, 29 April 1949, Page 6

“WILD WEST” ON THE FRONTIER OF AUSTRIA AND HUNGARY

(By Hubert Harrison, a Reuter Correspondent in Vienna.) The district of Austria along the Hungarian frontier has become a strange “Wild West” land, according to reports brought to Vienna by Austrian officials and civilians. The situation there has to be seen, they say, to be believed. Ir is a curious mixture of warlike preparations, smuggling, gang warfare, spy incidents, and a sordid but highly lucrative trade in political refugees. On the Hungarian side of the frontier is a system of barricades and guards, reminiscent of those of a country at war with its neighbours, but Austrian officials say that the object of the high barbedwire fences, the tall wooden watchtowers with, their machine-gun posts, tpe broad swathe of no man’s land, is not to prevent people entering Austria. It is. they say, to stop people leaving Hungary. Yet in spite of these elaborate precautions over 200 political refugees arc reported to cross the border every day as well as black market goods. Hardly a week passes without a million or two American cigarettes being seized by the Austrian authorities, although they are forced to hand them over to the Russian occupation forces. The usual procedure Austrian officials state is for the Hungarian Frontier Barrier to open and one or more heavy lorries bearing Russian number plates to dash through refusing to stop at the Austrian barrier. This trade in “Black Market” produce has bred its own parasites and the Austrian police have been called upon to fight gangs of armed bandits who have preyed upon the lorries bringing these valuable, cargoes to Vienna. Lorries have been held up by men masquerading as Austrian police or pretending to be Russian soldiers and lobbed of their loads which may be worth anything from £lO,OOO to £15,000 sterling. The refugees come mostly by night but first these refugees themselves report they have to pay ransom in the form of a very considerable sum to the Hungarian and Russian frontier officials. Often, too, when they are safely on the Austrian side they arc held to ransom again by unscrupulous men who allege that they are Austrian frontier guards and threaten to hand them back to the Hungarian or Russian guards unless they pay sums in the region of 600 dollars about £150).