§ Mr. Platts-Millsasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he is aware that a Conference of Working Youth, comprising 400 delegates representing more than 50,000 young people from all zones of Western Germany, proposed to be held in Bochum on 27th and 28th November, 1948, was forbidden by order of Military Government on 20th November, after all preparations had been made; that the Conference is now to be held in the U.S. zone; and what was the reason for this ban.
§ Mr. MayhewThe meeting was banned for the following reasons:
- (a) Permission to hold a meeting was not applied for by any recognised political party.
- (b) While the object of the meeting was advertised as a discussion of wide youth questions and youth problems in all spheres, it was found that the trade unions had sharply dissociated themselves from all support. A similar line was taken by the S.P.D. (Social Democrats) and the C.D.U. (Christian Democrats), while the Youth
124 Committee of the Deutscher Gewerkschaften Bund (German trade unions) at Dortmund advised their local officers that the assembly was entirely outside regular trade union activities. In addition, the regional Trade Union Youth Committee for North Rhine Westphalia resolved that trade union youth would not support or take part in the meeting. It thus became clear that the meeting was not spontaneous but rather a manoeuvre on behalf of a single political party. The meeting was, therefore, regarded by Military Government as political in nature and, since no permission to hold such a meeting had been sought or given, it was automatically banned. It is not known whether the conference is being held in the United States zone or on what basis an application to hold the meeting may have been made there.