To Allied Soldiers, E. Berlin Is a Gold Mine, Izvestia Says

American, British and French soldiers stationed in West Berlin regularly go on buying sprees in East Berlin to purchase state-subsidized products with money obtained illegally on the black market, the Soviet newspaper Izvestia said Saturday.

The soldiers sell dollars and West German marks to speculators in West Berlin, who in return give them East German marks at an illegal rate as much as 20 times more favorable than the official exchange level, the official government daily said.

“The soldiers from the three countries that stay in West Berlin look at the capital of East Germany as a kind of modern Klondike,” Izvestia said, referring to the Alaskan region that was the site of a gold rush in 1898.

“They come in empty-handed and leave loaded with purchases,” it said. “No one would pay any attention to them but for their military uniforms--American, British and French. Everyone knows that they come from West Berlin.”

There are 6,200 American, 3,500 British and 2,700 French soldiers in West Berlin.