SECRET MR. KING said that the Foreign Office considered that although the report was useful as a statement regarding the present position of the Bereitschaften, the conclusions which had been reached were not of great value. It was thought that more advantage would be gained if an examination was made of whether the Bereitschaften was :- (a) strong enough to keep order in the Soviet Zone if Soviet troops were withdrawn; (b) strong enough to be used as an aggressive body fighting alongside Soviet troops; (c) likely to obey orders if called upon to fire against Germans in Western Germany. said that M.I.6 considered that too strong a contrast had been drawn between the Bereitschaften as a security force, and as a nucleus of a German Red Army. Nevertheless, it was considered that they were justified in accepting the conclusions reached by the Intelligence Division as the latter were in the best position to assess the particular questions involved. In discussion, it was generally agreed that in the absence of the relevant background information regarding the preparation of the report, it would be undesirable to forward comments to the Intelligence Division. THE COMMITTEE:- Took note of the report but expressed the view that there was insufficient evidence to justify any conclusions on future trends regarding the para- military forces in the Soviet Zone of Germany. 3. POSITION OF BRIXMIS. SECRET (Previous Reference: J.I.C. (50) 60th Meeting, Minute 4). MR. KING informed the Committee that the Foreign Office had received a report in which it was stated that the Soviet authorities had informed the British Exchange Mission to the Soviet Zone (BRIXMIS) that they would be issued with new passes on 16th June. No further details regarding this matter were available but it seemed that the position had been restored to normal. GROUP CAPTAIN PAUL said that the Allied Occupation authorities would no doubt now be issuing passes for the Soviet Mission, and suggested that it might be arranged that these passes expired on the same date as those issued to BRIXMIS. Such an arrangement might prove useful when the question of renewal of passes came up again. -2- THIS IS A COPY. THE ORIGINAL IS RETAINED UNDER SECTION 3 (4) OF THE PUBLIC RECORDS ACT
- Collection ID
- CAB159
- Conflict
- Cold War
- Document Reference
- CAB 159/7/65
- File Reference
- CAB 159/0007
- Identifier
- 10.1080/swwf.cab159.0007.065
- Keywords
- Chinese Civil War Chinese Foreign Policy Communism Hong Kong Colonies Empire Imperial Defence Defence Invasion Threat Contingency Planning Assessing Enemy Strength Predicting Enemy Intentions Geographic Intelligence Partisans Occupied Germany Police Military Intelligence Occupation Arrangements British Intelligence Organisation Intelligence Services Responsibilities Intelligence Channels Intelligence Gathering Intelligence Distribution Security Secrecy
- Note
- Sections of this document have been retained under Section 3(4) of the Public Records Act, 1958.
- Pages
- 4
- Published in
- United Kingdom
- Themes
- Foreign Policy and International Relations Military Intelligence and Operations Intelligence Organisation and Administration