European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - July 13, 1945, Darmstadt, Hesse Yank the army weekly july 1945 the new jewish mayor appointed by my got to know the germans he now governs from the very intimate perspective of nazi concentration by Harry signs yank staff correspondent Israel the Bue Germeister of walked across his private Chambers in the Rathaus to the windows overlooking the town he stared Down for a then turned he 4a Man Shook my hand in the an important Man in the the owner of a Large clothing two months if he had seen he would have reported me to the Gestapo he would have sent me to my today i am his and he shakes my a strange business he he walked Back to his handsome Oak official chair and sat a egg Bald Man with a pugnacious jaw and a Black Mustache flecked with he looked older than his 42 years twelve years playing Hildean seek with the Gestapo Ages a he he was hard boiled and aggressive and he talked with the concentrated vigor of a Man who had waited a Long time to get something off his he rested his hands pal Down on his its a strange he like a strange Ettlinger is an Industrial town of popu a dozen Miles from the capital of Baden in Southern French troops of the seventh army swept into the town on april and Strauss got out of his Hole in the cellar of a farmhouse where he had been hiding for three months before the towns French military government officials at once offered him the Job of or believe i didst want the he three times they asked me to take twice i the third time i perhaps it is a duty i to and he gestured with contempt toward the but to the dead of the concentration and the Hal dead who were left behind Ettlinger was under fire for four Days before but the French aim must have been because there was Little most of it was in the workers living during the first few Days of occupation there was some looting by the a couple of rapes and a few other Small measure of repayment for what the wehrmacht did to the French my officers were highly cooperative and they escorted Strauss to his opened a bottle of wine and said the towns problems Are in your get to he got to the first thing he did was clean out the immediately the 50 party men who had worked in the town govern ment and Public he appointed a new City Council of five one one social one social Democrat and two Catholic party men there were two catholics appointed to the Council because Ettlinger is More than 75 percent Catholic and appointed each Man head of a department food labor Supply and he located nazi party men from lists found by the my and organized nazi work squads to dig Graves for the French and germans who had been killed in the fighting in and around Ettlinger he made them clean the debris from the streets and do other emergency in less than two weeks the towns water and electricity and other Public utilities were functioning for awhile there was a food shortage the mayor requisitioned six trucks to get and especially from the farm ers to feed the regular the bombed out refugees and the French troops stationed around he helped Urra who were operating Camps for the displaced persons who had been slave labor in Ettli Gens Industrial plants during the the schools had been closed he obtained per Mission to open them three Days a not Only for the Sake of but to take the children off their mothers the Council organized work groups of children from 12 to 14 years old to kill potato great danger to the crop Page 6 v Fritz Israel Buer Germeister of at his official t m in this groups of 14to16yearolds to work on farms and in forests and to collect Loose ammunition and each of the work groups was put under the leadership of boys care fully picked from trusted Catholic and socialist the towns and cellulose machine tool plants and repaired so they would be ready to operate when the railroads were All property which had been owned by the nazis was put in trus and the mayor recommended that it be turned Over to those who had been robbed and persecuted by the or to their they renamed the nazi streets Adolf Hitler Strasse was changed to Heinrich Heine Strasse Horst Wessel Strasse became Niemoeller other streets were renamed for left Wing party workers and catholics who had been Mur dered by the Gestapo or All party books and pamphlets were taken the Homes and Public and tossed in the garbage we did not Burn because fire Strauss now the stores Are open and life is As Normal As life in any German town can Beafter 12 years of the mayor paused and looked hard for a you Are thinking i am Well pleased with that i am saying the work is done the nazis Are driven the people Are the streets have been and now we can Start a fresh new you Are in not All this work could be undone in the time it takes to Nail up a new Street he smiled a Friend of mine came to see me when i assumed office and said Why do you retain your name which was a badge of shame under the nazis and i told him it helps me refresh my he lit a Chesterfield and puffed for 12 years Ive hated the during these past five Ive Learned to despise you see these people walking in our streets a pleasant people men smoking their pipes on the Street women going to Market holding their Little girls by the a Friendly All Rotten they come to me at strange hours with their late at when no one is the other night one Man came to me and whispered 4do you remember when Hugo the socialist was denounced to the Gestapo Hans Mueller is the they betray each these germans they betray their nation and their he banged his fist on the there is one language nazis understand the fist in the there is one Hope hard ceaseless i would take All the party members and Send them to All the coun tries they Force them to rebuild for As Long As 20 you must teach nazis that they Are a Defeated people you must Jam their defeat Down their he it is not a question of we who have suffered from the nazis Are beyond thoughts of it is a question of saving the world from another you allies do not understand the you Are too you hire experts who Are party men to work in the military government these experts recommend other soon you have a ring of nazis in the my in which each Man vouches for the others and makes in Karlsruhe the French appointed a finance commissioner who was a party Man from 1931 in other places even is men became my looked at you come from a nation where decency and Honor Are accepted like the air you breathe and the water you but most of the germans have lost their sense of Honor even their capacity for you have seen the posters of the concentration Camps All Over our town the people look at Thern As if these Camps were in another the no party Man blames the party the nazis blame the set the is blames the higher officers and the higher officers blame who is dead or but i Tell you they Are All All except the few decent ones who Are in Ettlinger i could Point the decent ones one by one the handful of social catholics and the priests who remained faithful to their even Many of the men who were in office before 33 have Learned they took pen Sions from the and lived their Small shrunken lives in they Are bankrupt Herr Strauss was born in his people lived in Baden for More than years our roots Are As deep in the land As the Trees of our Black he grew up and went to school in then moved to where he opened a during the 20s he was an Active he wrote articles for socialist newspapers and became head of a fraternal association of Baden of whom 180 Are known to be alive in after Hitler got in Strauss left for Paris and married the following in 1935 he received a Telegram from his father informing him of his mothers death and asking him to re turn to the wire was a Gestapo when Strauss crossed the Border at near he was picked up by the agents and thrown in prison and sent from there a month later to a concentration Camp at Tislau in there were no he was kept at Tislau for five re leased and returned to where he opened another in 1937 the Gestapo picked him up again and sent him to the Dachau Camp for seven there were no in 1938 he was released and returned to Karls Ruhe just in time to watch his property being destroyed by mobs who rioted in november after a polish jew killed Ernst von the nazi Mil itary attache in Strauss smiled that was the beginning of the More Active Hunt ing from then on he was on the hiding in one town after in forests and deserted most of the time he hid in and around where his Catholic wife and Small son were living with her during All these years he was not permitted to go out of the House in or use the or speak to German when the War All the jews in Baden were sent to Poland except those who had married he because his wife was my father was not so the Bue Germeister he married a he was 70 years old when they sent him to and he did not live to arrive in 1945 a bribed Gestapo agent in formed his inlays that All persons in Ettlinger with any jewish blood were to be taken to Dachau or shot at once because the French were Strauss and his 8yearold son went and hid in the cellar of a farmhouse near Ett his wife brought him food in the dead of faithful the food from part of their they knew he was alive but it was understood they were not to ask any he remained hidden in the cellar for three on the Day the French came i walked out of my Hole to Freedom and my his eyes my he repeated you come from where such things cannot the Bue Germeister continued perhaps you will find it difficult to understand women 4ike Frau they had met in Karlsruhe 15 years where she was working As a she was blonde and vivacious they had gone out on fallen in a year after he left for Paris she joined him and they they lived in Paris one year one wonderful year and when he was trapped in Germany and thrown into prison she returned to live in the greater prison Germany to be with her the Bue Germeister my wife is Catholic and i am a you understand what such a marriage meant in hitlers but we respected each others we had common and a common love of the decent things in during the years he was the Black years of nazi she was his closest when he was in prison and in the concentration Camps she went from official to official to obtain his and when he walked out of the Pris on he found her during All that time she refused to go to the movies or attend concerts a terrible because she loved music so she would not go anywhere without and naturally i was forbidden to go any when Strauss was in the Gestapo sometimes picked her up and questioned her they broke into the House at All hours of the night and stole papers and even their marriage three times they put her in the torture chamber of the Ettlinger Gestapo to frighten her into revealing her husbands hiding places and at the last they accused her of Frau helped the jews when they were rounded up to be de ported to Poland and almost certain death she made up food packages and took them to the railway station and gave them to the women of the families who were she helped the slave labourers of Ettlinger with gifts of clothes and food and cigarettes when clothes and food and cigarettes were hard to her Circle of friends quickly women she had grown up former girls she went to Church with and on turned the other Way when they met her on storekeepers often refused to Honor her ration and the butchers gave her the cheapest cuts of when she walked on the Street the nazi hoodlums of Ettlinger shouted jews now she sits in the spacious private Chambers of the a Well soft voiced who Back Home might be the head of the towns Charity club or of the Parent teacher they Are very cordial my old friends in said Frau the storekeepers cannot do too much for the Buer Germeister and my neighbors children Are so anxious to play with my her voice scarcely two months ago they threw stones at him with cries of jews Bastard and yet he is a he likes to a Little later we visited the Bue Germeister in his Public less grand than the formal surroundings of the mayors official there was a great Deal of people were coming going out Many stood outside the waiting their a woman came in to complain that her neigh Bors dog was biting the children another that her husband was mistreating others complained that displaced poles were getting drunk and insulting German there were re quests for food ration the Bue Germeister listened made his decision in final his face was a members of the Council came in with problems of housing and labor and mayors from a local town visited him for advice officials of the French my came to a very Able that a French Cap Tain told a Man of i told him that he May get Hurt one of these Days by some nazi but he Only i find it to Admire a but i have a great admiration for the per haps it is because i cannot think of him As a in he fought them As bitterly As we when we went up to Fritz Israel Strauss to say goodbye he i have a Farewell gift for and he took from his Wallet a frayed yellow cloth in the form of a six pointed with Jude in Black across the i wore it he and he placed it below his Page 7
