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X.A.10-. December 526 - page two " As we said before, the land forces of the Hast German Army are composed of two large branches: the political elite forces of the Grenzpolizei (border police) and the general Army or Volkspolizei. The Grenzpolizei of border police is not primariiy what its name indicates. *nough many of its forces are stationed along the borders and though at present most of these men are used in preventing people from escaping the German Democratic Republic, the primary aim of this force is to be a highly trained first-class armed, highly mobile unit, on which the regime can fully rely, in order to defeat domestic movements, fight parachutists and saboteurs, in other words to keep up the domestic order, in case of emergency. Their present employment is mainly due to the wh$h to keep these forces well trained and to give them practical experiences. The border police is composed of 23 so-called Bereitschaften, cach one of these being composed of | from 800 to 1.000 men, 4 cently, several of these bereitschaften have b en transferred to the military Volkspolizeie ?o far it is Hard to say, how many of these transfers have actually taken place. Hach man | in the Bereitschaft is equiped with the Soviet 98-K rifle. *hey further have “oviet tommy guns and arc motorized with the new BMW jeeps and Panzerspachwagene As of present, 5 of these Bereitschaften are in the Mast, along &he rolish and Czech border; 4 are in the Berlin | area; 2 are on the northern sea bord; while all the rest is doing service on the West Geman border. the normal Volkspolizei, which will correspond in thee future tó the army of “ast Germany, is divided into 28 so-called Dienststellen. “hese have a strength of roughiy 2.500 mene ‘the bienststellen are again considered only as cadres. wach Dienststelle has its staff command, three bataillons of infantry, with each 31 officers and 52 NCOs, one Artillery unit of 5 batter es anu one company each of armor, antiw-aircraft guns ,# anti-tankguns, intelligence, technical forces and finally a , company of supply servicese ihe equipment is fully Hussian. the armor/of the T-34 type, while the ranzerspaehwagen are of the B-64 type. he forces thus at present, in this branch, are around 70.000. but id $rould not be forgotten, that sli of these 70.000 hove received such training that they can serve immeuiatcly as cadre for larger unitse The Naval Force was of*icially organized on vuly 17, 19505 it is called Sea Police. in its administration are four police schools, five bataillions of 3ea Police ana tuo vea rolice small fleetse At present, the force is estimated to be somewhere around 16.000 mens The boats they have are headed by two mogcrn gunboats of 1200 tons each, the "Prenzlau" and the "Fuerstenberg".s hese are supported by eight 600 ton boats and 38 smaller units. he new construction program forsee the constuuction of 46 oth -r smaller unites. +he most alarming feature here lies in the fact that 900 seagoing members of the Seepolizei have recently been shipped to Russia, in order to receive submarine traininge While there is no evid nce of the construction of sitmarines in the German Democratic Republic, hothing might prevent the USSR to give such submarines to their German allies. ————————