Hey! Wait for Me!

An increasing number of fugitives were bursting out from behind the Iron Curtain with their clothes on fire. They were of two general kinds--Germans fleeing from the crushing caresses of their new Soviet masters; Soviet citizens fleeing from Russia. During August, 100,000 Soviet Zone Germans tried--about half of them successfully--to cross into the U.S. zone. Among them were some bigwigs:

Dr. Rudolf Paul, Minister President of Thuringia; Theodor Plivier, longtime Communist writer, whose book called Stalingrad won him Soviet kudos; Jena's Mayor Heinrich Mertens; Muehlhausen's Mayor Heinrich Stuecker; Mine Director Hans Grassman, who had bossed four Soviet workings in Saxony, where 10,000 conscripted Germans were mining for uranium.

Home in a Strait Jacket. Desertions from all ranks of the Red Army were so numerous that Russian border guards had been doubled. Berlin saw a typical tragedy. When young Red Army Senior Lieut. Alexis Kovalev was ordered back to Russia, he slashed his wrists. But he was rushed to one of Berlin's American hospitals and recovered. He pleaded for help to get to the U.S. zone. Because of a U.S.Russian agreement to return each other's soldiery, his pleas were vain. When Red Army MPs came for him, Kovalev fought until they clapped a strait jacket on him. Hospital attendants last saw him in a Red Army ambulance beating his head against the side panels, trying to kill himself.

Another Russian runaway was Georgian-born Lieut. General Gulishvili. Chief intelligence officer in the Soviet zone of Austria, Gulishvili skipped from Vienna in August and stopped off in Paris. Last week, when he was safely en route to South America, France-Soir published his answers to some pertinent questions. Most pertinent:

The Red Army is being reorganized. It will not be ready for war until 1952. It will not have atomic weapons before then. It will not have long-range aircraft before 1950.

One Pistol--One Ammunition. The strangest fugitives were the Ukrainians. For international purposes, such as gatherings of the U.N., the Soviet Union treats the Ukrainian republic ts an independent state. But some Ukrainians have been trying to throw off the Soviet yoke since 1918. A group of Ukrainian partisans under a 25-year-old leader named Lakhidnya had fought their way to the U.S. zone last summer. Since then, they have been filtering through in small detachments. They cannot be classed as D.P.s. So the somewhat baffled U.S. military authorities have interned them in a barracks in Bavaria.

One day Lakhidnya asked a U.S. lieutenant: "When you will start fighting the Russians?" The lieutenant had heard the question many times before. Jokingly he pointed to a row of carbines: "When we have two more guns." To Lakhidnya it was a poor joke. But he smiled politely and said: "One pistol--that all you need. That--and one ammunition."

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