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GERMANY: Vkhod Vospreshchyon

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TIME

Refreshingly sweet was the Allied Control Council’s unanimity on sugar taxation for Germany last week. Treacly sweet was the notation that: “British and American representatives associated themselves with an expression of congratulation by General Koenig to Marshal Sokolovsky on his elevation to the high rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union. Representatives of the U.S., the Soviet Union and Great Britain also congratulated General Koenig on his promotion to the rank of Army General.” Such sugar-coating could not hide the fact that the four powers had not agreed where it mattered most: coordinated control of Germany.

V for Veto. In Berlin, just as in New York’s Bronx and in Paris, the letter V had come to stand for something besides Victory. Russia’s Lieut. General M. I.

Dratvin had tossed a brick during one of last month’s Coordinating Committee sessions (where most of the spade work for the more publicized Control Council is performed). He called for a four-power investigation to find out whether the British were keeping German army units poised in their zone. Britain agreed. Then the U.S. representative, Lieut. General Lucius D. Clay, went further: “While we’re at it, let’s have a real investigation of economic disarmament in all zones.”

General Dratvin retreated, refused to discuss the matter further. Dratvin’s Vkhod Vospreshchyon (Entry Forbidden) was enough to keep U.S. and British investigators out of the Russian zone. Clay’s proposal was kicked upstairs to the Control Council, where last week Russia’s newly appointed, bemedaled Marshal Vassili Sokolovsky echoed his subordinate’s Vkhod Vospreshchyon.

V for Vergeltung. Russia’s reasons for refusal seemed connected with reports that behind their zonal curtain the Russians were guilty of using German manpower on war projects—the same offense they had imputed to the British.

Eight miles southeast of Berlin German scientists were working on V-(V=Vergeltung=Reprisal) under the supervision of Soviet scientists and military personnel. Known to the Germans as Magnetische Luftabwehrwaffe, the V-4s is an improved high-altitude magnetic rocket.

While Russia used veto power to keep the Big Four from arriving at unity, she played ‘another tune in her direct dealings with Germans. The Russians not only permitted Germany’s right-of-center Christian Democratic Union Party to hold a meeting in Berlin; Marshal Sokolovsky held a lavish reception for the delegates. (They came from all over Germany except the French zone, where permission to attend was refused.) Russian Information Control Chief, Colonel Serge Tulpa-nov (who, like most Russian occupation officers, but unlike most Americans, speaks German fluently), said: “We Russians desire a unified and strong Germany. A Balkanized Germany would breed war. The Russian and German people are the two largest and most powerful peoples in Europe.”

There was no veto to stop doubletalk.

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