§ 21. Mr. Gallacherasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will give the text of the offending passages from the "Volksstimme" in Cologne, and the "Westdeutsches Volksecho" in Dortmund, which caused the British authorities again to ban these two German papers.
§ Mr. BevinAs the answer is long and contains quotations, I will, with permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
§ Mr. GallacherDoes not the right hon. Gentleman agree that an arrangement has been reached that all opinions opposing capitalist restabilisation in the British and American zones have to be suppressed at all costs?
§ Following is the answer:
Of the two newspapers referred to in the hon. Member's Question, "Volksstimme" has not previously been banned by the Military Government although it has been reprimanded three times and on the last occasion, three months ago, warned that this would be the last warning. "Westdeutsches Volksecho" has been suspended twice in the last ten months, once for a period of one month in June, 1947, and once for six weeks in February, 1948, for a continued campaign of malicious, biased and inaccurate statements directed against the British and United States Governments. The specific passages on which action was taken in the case of "Westdeutsches Volksecho" are comments on Italian elections published on 23rd April, 1948, and a syndicated article published on 27th April, 1948. The first comment read:The big capitalists, large landowners, the Vatican and the gentlemen of Wall Street have succeeded by their hunger policy, mental terrors and intimidation, detachments of police, rumours of civil war, and American warships and bombers, in leading the lower classes of Italy and also a large number of women into the Christian Democrat Camp.
The second comment read:Ever since the collapse of the Hitler regime the German people have longed for a 2106 just peace. Instead of this it is forced to accept a Marshall Plan, which, operating behind the mask of philanthropy, threatens to transform Western Germany info a colony of American monopoly capitalism and destroy German unity. The ruins of the second world war have not yet been cleared away, the tears of the widows and orphans have not yet been dried, and once again new warmongers are attempting to make the West German industrial area the cause of Imperialist quarrels and the battleground of a third world war.
§ This comment also appeared in "Volksstimme" on 26th April. In view of its previous record, the licence of "Westdeutsches Volksecho" has been withdrawn, for repeated violation of paragraph 5 of the policy instructions accompanying its licence, which lays down that nothing shall be published which intentionally tends to provoke disunity among the Allied Powers and their Forces of Occupation. Other legislation which has been infringed are Control Council Directive No. 40 and Military Government Ordinance No. 1. "Volksstimme" has been suspended for one month under the same legislation.