Watch East Germany
It has been said so often the main theatre of defence still lies in Western Europe that there is a tendency for the phrase to be emptied of precise meaning. But one of the things it must mean is that if at any time a direct Communist attack on the West were.
to come, Eastern Germany would at once become an area of supreme military importance. This does not .mean that Eastern Germany would necessarily be the scene of the next aggressive move. But nothing can make Eastern Germany anything less than a critical area, and there has been any amount of recent evidence that the Russians are intent on making it safe for Com- munism at any cost. The existence of large forces of heavily armed East German police, in formations which are military in everything but name, is notorious. So is the tight Russian grip on the armed forces of Poland; immediately to the East. But the political weapons have been receiving the most conspicuous atten- tion 'recently. Last week the East German Volkskammer passed a measure which it called a law for the protection of peace," but which was, in fact, a most formidable instrument for the suppression of individual liberty. It decreed a whole list of penalties, including death, for war propaganda, and so defined that cloudy term that it covered practically every form of criticism of present Communist policy. Most sinister of all, the law applies to-offences committed outside East Germany. Another law to make attendance at State schools compulsory, and therefore to expose all children (including the children of foreigners resident in the area) to Communist in- doctrination, is on the stocks. And finally comes that device which is the infallible sign that. Communists mean business—the party purge, which is to begin next month.
