The formation of a German border police force to patrol the frontiers of the American zone occupation, as announced this week by General Joseph T. McNarney in his monthly report from Frankfurt to President Truman, will not change the present War Department policy of permitting entrance of Jewish refugees into the American zone, a War Department spokesman today informed the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
While these refugees are not legally entitled to entrance into the American area, the spokesman declared, their entry is being authorized and will not be interrupted by the functioning of the border police.
The new police force, it was emphasized, will maintain a check on the movement of the German population into the American zone, and on German attempts to leave the area. Approximately two and a quarter million Germans will be moved back into the American zone between December last and July of this year from Czechoslovakia and other areas. The formation of the force has been under consideration for a long time but was delayed, it is said, because of lack of sufficient American army personnel, and until reliable German personnel could be found.
In his report, McNarney describing the December trek of Polish Jews through Berlin to the American zone, noted that “the persons involved were in better physical condition than earlier refugees, and apparently migrated through fear of persecution.” The flow of refugees into the American occupation zone of Germany continues at such a rate that by March displaced persons camps may have to feed and lodge more than 600,000 persons, General McNarney estimated.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
