Dirva = Field. [volume] (Cleveland, Ohio) 1915-current, 1948-05-07
Soviet Fifth Column in Allied Zones

war criminals among the displaced
persons in their zones and that the
appropriate lists could be made to
include tens of thousands if the
matter were handled properly. Our
Latvian was to have gone to the
American zone where a local agent
would manage a job with UNRRA
for him. He was to receive special
instructions at a later date and in
the meantime only the general as
poets of his future work were out
lined to him. These were in the
first place the identification" OF
| the greatest possible number of
prominent Latvians and other Balts
as war criminals and Nazi collabora-
tors in order to deprive the great
mass of their leaders and generally
to cause insecurity and fear An
intensive propaganda for repatria-
ton was to be carried on among
the remaining refugees. Those re-
sisting these Establishments and pos
sessing some influence on tn e i r
countrymen were to be compromised
in every way and represented as
criminal elements if it proved inn
possible to accuse them Of collabo
ration with the Nazis.
| After three days of instruction
our man got the order to cross the
frontier at a certain spot and to
go to little town in Bavaria where
he was to contact local agent
using all sorts of secret signs and
passwords.
Our Latvian did not go to the
Bavarian town in question. He took
another direction after having eros
sed the frontier and for over
year lead a miserable life as man
hunted in Germany, fearing every
body and everything, never daring
to stay long in one place, working
whenever he could and often starv-
ing, before he plucked up courage
to risk everything and give himself
up to the Allied authorities.
J In his wanderings he met man
whom he had known slightly in Lat
via and seen again at the MVD
headquarters in Czechoslovakia where
he was being detained. This man
was a Baltic German whom the
Nazis had settled in Poland in 1910
and he confided to our Latvian that
he, too, was a Soviet agent. His
sphere of activity was the black
market. He disposed Of enormous
sums of money and had number
Of sub-agents. He had crossed the
frontier to Czechoslovakia and back
several times and, although dis
gusted with his dirty work, dared
not desert. He had been instruct
ed to lure DPS to indulge in specu-
lation, to employ them as sub-agents,
to provide them with goods to sell,
etc. His relations both with the
German and Czech police were ex-
ceedingly friendly but his DIP sub
agents were somehow almost in
variably caught. He said that it
was easiest to do things with liquor:
you could always find somebody
among the DPS who would be will
ing to have a drink which goes a
long way in their weakened condi-
ton; under it's influence they are
more amenable to persuasion and
the German police gets plenty of
opportunities to hold them up as
lax and degenerate gang. The
things this Baltic German traded
in were mostly stolen and he ar
ranged even thefts by means of
agents. Moreover he had heaps OF
food rationing cards for every zone
and anybody at all acquainted with
German conditions knows how easy
it is to create chaos in the supply
apparatus there even with com
paratively small number of forged
coupons,