Evening star., 1950-04-30
Red Mqh Is Convetnq Baltic Into Russian Mare Nostrun
By Curt [. Heymonn
A,soeio,ed Press stoff Correspondent,

the Baltic Sea into a Russian
mare nostrum"
Along a 600-mile coastline, ex-
tending from Kaliningrad in the
East to the British occupation
zone near Lubbock in the West,
Russia dominates today this stra-
logically important body of wa
ter. Only five years ago, the
Nazi war machine launched its
devastating sea and air attacks
from the Southern shores Of the
Baltic, in the days when Kalinin-
grad was Koenigsberg.
The Russians replaced the Ger
mans in a region that was not
only the Third Reich's northern
defense territory" It was also
a testing ground for Hitler's new
weapons. Today's masters of
Mecklenburg, Pomerania, the for
mer East and West Prussia COM
pleted in these provinces many
jobs which the Wehrmacht left
unfinished.
What was formerly the Nazi
north wall" is now firmly incor-
porated in the Russian fortifica-
ton system. The admiralty of the
Red navy made of the Baltic
huge armament basin. This Is
Moscow's answer to the challenge
of American and British naval
supremacy.
The Russians have done a thor
ough job. They eliminated use
less" inhabitants of the region by
executing the most drastic evac-
uat;on orders. Islands, peninsu-
las. fishing villages and ports
along the coast were completely
striped of civilians and replaced
by forced labor battalions. Thus
total defense zone" was cre-
ated that laid waste a whole
strip of valuable marshland and
at certain points reaches as far
as thirty miles inland.
Rostock is a point in question.
This important inland harbor,
only a short distance from the
sea port of Warnemuende, was an
industrial city with a population
of 10000. 1t was transformed into
a rail hub and distribution center
for nearby military and naval
installations.
But Rostock's population did
not decrease. To the contrary,
it's shipyards are going full blast.
At the Neptune Works 10000
workers are converting at present
the German vessels Hansa, Oce-
ana and Cordillera into Soviet
troop transports.
The hotels and boardinghouses
of Warnemuende, formerly a pop
ular seaside resort on the mouth
of the River Warnow. are filled
with 1000 workers of the Karl
Liebknecht plant, constructing
600-ton torpedo boats TYPE TD
and two types of submarines:
Type XXI of 1000 tons and Type
XVIII of $500 tons, both pro-
PEELED by Walther turbines and
fitted with 10 torpedo tubes each.
Populations of the ancient City
of Stettin (Szczecin) and the
ports of Swinemuende (Swinoujs-
cie) and Kolberg (KolbrZeg) like
wise increased by leaps and
bounds. Misdroy and Kolberg, re
spectively, form the Western and
Eastern bridgeheads of a scheme
within scheme" of fortificat tions,
linked to each other by a chain
of fortified coastal points which,
for good measure, form the center
OF the Baltic Red bastion."
They are destined to protect the
mouth of the Oder and the Stettin
Half; Swinemuende, Headquarters
of the Soviet Baltic fleet; and
Stettin, the No. l naval construc-
ton base of the Russians in Gen.
tral Europe.
Proclaimed as a forbidden
zone" secrecy in this territory has
all the earmarks of our wartime
Manhattan Project" A special
zone police" exclusively Russian,
is on duty and keeps rigid order.
Kolberg, for once, now shares
honorS with Peenemuende as the
foremost testing ground for rock
cts and V-bombs.
Closed to Foreigners.
Nominally belonging to Poland,
the coastal strip from Kolberg to
Misdroy is closed to foreigners"
ironically enough including even
Poles. Where Polish troops are
stationed they are kept behind
barbed wire. There is new radar
station at Deep and a seaplane
basin at Henkenhagen but the
Russians did not trust Polish
workers and engineers with their
construction. They transported for
this purpose German prisoners
from the Neubrandenburg camp.
Stettin and Swinemuende COM
prise the hub of the Russian
Baltic project" Both cities are
linked by a newly constructed
highway, the Arndtstrasse, along
which the Soviets built blocks of
new houses mostly for especially
qualified German workers So far