A visit to-day to a stretch of frontier 15 miles long between the Soviet and British zones has shown the extent to which the Russians are tightening their control and converting what was a nominal borderline into an efficiently guarded barrier running for a hundred miles across Germany. German police on the British side report that large-scale smuggling has almost stopped, and illegal traffic across the frontier has become merely a trickle.
There are now permanent posts on all roads of any size which are manned by Russian troops. Minor roads are blocked by three-foot trenches and the country in between is dotted with new frontier demarcation boards and patrolled by German police. British scout cars have been more active on this side of the frontier, but no extra police have been enrolled. Checks on food being removed by Germans in the Soviet zone are not severe. Food is confiscated on the British side only if more than eight pounds are being carried, and as a result the smuggling is largely one way.
I stopped several groups of Germans returning across the frontier to their homes in the Soviet zone. They were carrying bread, butter and fish. German police told me they had not heard of expeditions from the British to the Soviet zone for food for the last year. So much for the story that is being put about by the Soviet-licensed papers in Berlin that large bands of Germans are ╥plundering╙ the Soviet zone for food and taking it into the British zone. In villages on the Soviet side of the frontier there has been no fat ration for six months and no meat ration this year. This was confirmed at two places where I crossed over open ground into the Soviet zone.
BAGGAGE SEARCHED
It is clear that the Russians have brought a large number of new frontier guards from far afield. The chief recruiting ground is Saxony and a system is employed of never having local men who might have friends and relations on the other side of the frontier. The detachments have been increased fourfold or more in the last three weeks and are stationed in every village within three miles of the frontier. The Russian posts are roughly seven or eight miles apart and in large villages consist of as many as fifty men. All pedestrians carrying rucksacks are stopped and their belongings are liable to confiscation. If caught more than once they are given forced labour duties.
The most easily traded wares from the Soviet zone are raw spirits and silk stockings. Spirits can be bought on the ration for 60 marks and sold in the British zone for 250. German police told me that firms in the Soviet zone give frontier-runners regular employment and have depots for goods some way back from the frontier and behind the strictly controlled belt.
The German police on the Soviet side are mostly young. ╥Party╙ men are given high pay, good rations, and ╥blood money╙ for each frontier-runner captured. There is no news of Russian troop movements in the frontier area other than the usual stories of ╥Mongolians,╙ but it is certain that the iron curtain is coming down fast and that a barrier is being created which is designed to divide Germany in two.
