The Battle of Salzburg

In some ways, the Soviet repatriation mission in Austria's U.S. zone was a joke. In three years of combing crowded Austrian D.P. camps, it had found only 106 Russians who wanted to return home, and about half of them were Russian D.P.s with jail records for criminal offenses who were ineligible to go anywhere else. The vast majority of the D.P.s wanted to stay west of the Iron Curtain.

But the mission had an unofficial function which U.S. military authorities did not find amusing: espionage in the U.S. zone. U.S. authorities finally found the excuse they had been seeking to send the Soviet mission packing. Last month, a trigger-happy, tommygun-toting Russian soldier had killed a U.S. corporal who was on night patrol in Vienna's international zone. When the Russians refused to cooperate with the U.S. in an investigation of the case, U.S. High Commissioner Walter J. Donnelly retaliated by giving the mission until June 8 to return to the Soviet zone.

The Russians promptly stocked up on bread, salami and potatoes, holed up in their quarters at the Cheesemakers' Inn, directly across the street from U.S. Army Intelligence headquarters in Salzburg, and prepared for a long siege. Colonel Alexander Smirnov, the burly chief of the mission, announced moodily that he could not leave until he received orders from Russian headquarters in Vienna. As far as personal relations were concerned, the Russians had gotten along fine in Salzburg -- particularly Senior Lieut. Vasily Pivovarov, who had acquired quite a reputation among U.S. Army officers because he always breakfasted on six eggs, four sausages, one raw cucumber, eight slices of bread and a glass of vodka.

The officer in charge of escorting the Russians out of the U.S. zone last week was Major Gunther E. Hartel. Anxious to avoid a siege such as the Russians staged in Frankfurt two years ago -- they left only after the U.S. cut off water, food and lights -- the major invited the Russians to a formal conference at his office. At the conference, the Russians again refused to leave, but when they went back to their quarters, they found G.I.s busy loading their baggage into an Army truck.

Then Major Hartel approached, asked the Russians to follow the truck to the Soviet zone border at Enns Bridge, about 80 miles away. When the Russian driver, Sergeant Vasily Elistratov, refused to start the Russians' big black Mercedes, G.I.s dragged him from the driver's seat. A U.S. lieutenant took the wheel and drove the Russians to the border. When they arrived, one of the escorting Americans shook hands with Elistratov, remarked: "I'm sorry it had to happen this way." Said Sergeant Elistratov, with tears in his eyes, before he crossed into the Red zone: "I'm sorry our two people can't get together. I'm a soldier and I obey orders."

The battle of Salzburg was over; the U.S. had won it without cutting a single water pipe.

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