European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - August 17, 1945, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Yank the army weekly August the people on the sidewalks beamed and nodded approvingly As the policeman Shook the they said to each other that this police Man would tolerate no the germans have yielded to authority for a Long and there has been Only isolated resistance to Allied an american sentry was found stabbed to death near a few Allied soldiers have been fired upon at in an explosion destroyed a Section of the police which also housed the counter intelligence corps and the military government safety six americans and a larger num of germans were the explosion was to a delayed demolition planted by the police at the time of the was undergoing a purge of the Schleswig Holstein 30 germans were arrested for having arms in their they face possible death throughout 12 other germans already have been executed for concealing authorities say there is no evidence of an organized nazi there Are nazi fanatics still Loose who will sabotage and kill when they but the nazi leaders Are in jail or missing the for a while at Are tired of and the allies by execution and prison sentences have made it Plain Troat they mean whether the German resistance could become formidable in the the Allied authorities depends on Many things How Well we govern How Well we supplant the nazi ideologies with new ideals How Well we control the fanatics and How effectively we get Tough when Tough Ness is the German people were taught for 12 years that the democracies Are and now they Are watching for signs of the German children watch the men of the wehrmacht trudging Back through the ruined cities but the German children still play they build pillboxes and forts in the when German boys go to the they often they Drill with they count Boyish it seems incredible to the weary of but the germans like to do things by the both the children and the adults still talk of the Hitler adroitly nourished by Goebbels before the nazis came to still there Are Many particularly those in denying they Are will attest fervently to their affection for he was a Good they say who was misled by bad most of these people believe that Hitler went into the streets of Berlin with the comely Eva at his voluntarily seeking death and that they died together of russian artillery these germans sigh lustily when they Tell the such germans Are suckers for any Story that Hammy the people on the West Side of the around Aachen and doubt that Hitler is they suspect he is in these people say that Hitler is a they express a preference for they say that Goering is an Jolly you get the idea whimsical old the Coventry one reason Why the people West of the Rhine look with apparent jaundice on is that they have been under Allied Rule longer than any area in they suspect that Hitler May be through for germans never did have much use for a in the last Days of hitlers when the nazi Empire was collapsing under the great blows from the East and Hitler warned that he would leave the conquerors of Germany nothing but ruins and for in a lifetime dedicated to Hitler told a half the ruins Are the buildings lie beaten to the or stand like gutted Street after Street of factories which once poured out a gushing Stream of the tools of War now sprawl in grotesque heaps of blasted Bent shattered it seems at first that All Germany is a demolished Jigsaw Puzzle that never can be put together yet closer inspection shows there Are probably of big ones and Little and Many More thousands of Homes that were scarcely or damaged not at the main Krupp Plant at for sex is barely the same is True of the great steel factory at some factories Al ready Are producing in there Are tremendous stocks of Many raw a particularly steel and German industrialists Are eager to get ahead with product the production of almost they and they Wink that they could forge Fine weapons for the allies to use against it is a bet that the industrialists never will get the Chance to make the american Mem ories Are too the germans have an unhappy habit of forgetting when to quit making so the resumption of work in factories has been by it is a Man sided prob complicated by inadequate and sometimes paralysed shifting equipment dozens of other anything resembling prewar living is a Long Way off in some German say that it will not return for 25 maybe 50 in some cities it looks As though it would take 25 years to haul away the Hitler said that he would leave epidemics and there Are rats even in where sheaf Forward had been and where any but the most militarily Dis courteous rats would have been frightened away quickly by the shimmering brass and the impeccable there is also disease that follows since the occupation there have been cases in 254 communities in Allied occupied the disease has been most prevalent in the concentration Camps and in the displaced persons Assembly there has been virtually no typhus among the Allied troops because of their shots and their relative Freedom from disease Ridden new cases of typhus have occurred in Only a few instances after Allied authorities took Over in an epidemic effective control of the disease has been maintained by Isola Tion and typhus was linger Way in Germany before the collapse of the German spread of the disease was accelerated by the movement of Dis placed persons and political prisoners behind the German lines with inadequate medical Allied medical authorities moved and Are pleased with the they say that the prospects for Little typhus next Winter the real typhus season Are the prospects for crops Are the Harvest of Barley and Rye has started in some the Fields Are abundant and Well much like Fields in Iowa and acreage is women and children help with the neighbors help each occasionally a Farmer or a horse will be blown up by a the others become More but the Harvest goes the germans Are used to Many of the germans have gardens that the gis Call defeat there Are plenty of fresh the vegetables Are a Boon to the with their reduced the Ger mans worry and grumble about what will happen when the vegetables give a military government official explained there is a lot of we want the germans to dig a healthy German who int starving can dig a lot More Coal than a sick our purpose is to produce More not fat Ger the germans on the farms feel sorry for the germans in the these Rural germans doubt that some of the cities Ever will be re they think Germany will be a nation of villages and Small the following summary indicates what the War has done to some representative German cities few Industrial plants Are Back in operation in manufacturing clothes and articles used for none of the cites major plants has been restored to Leipzig is estimated to be from 25 to 35 percent the prewar population of has fallen to the streetcars have been running since april four Days after the City was cleared of Ger most Homes have electricity and fifty trains a Day run into there is a Rumor among the gis that in the famous Leipzig zoo the animals Are so hungry they Are eating one this is not the animals Are eating horse meat and look Well some afraid of going hungry this favor killing the animals in the zoo and saving the horse the Long room in the fuehrer House in where Benito Nev Ille Chamberlain and edouard Daladier signed the notorious pact of gis Hurtch Down in the upholstered chairs and talk about Dis charge at the table where Musso Chamberlain and Daladier ceremoniously affixed their signatures document that was to assure peace in our Wade Logan commander of Battery 571st a signs passes handed to him by 1st theddore the room is now Battery and the americans there Are More interested in going Home than they Are in rehashing what May have happened this same room Long paint is peeling off the an my leans against the which has a Bronze plate with in 6inch helmet liners Are scattered on the the room next where nazi henchmen waited hitlers is now a i Barber unofficial estimates place the damage in the yank the army weekly August 1945 y Center of Munich at 75 the outskirts escaped with far less the population has dropped to from the prewar figure of smells of there Are thou Sands of persons still buried in the trapped there when the air raid sirens mysteriously failed warn that the planes were the damage in Kassel is estimated at from 75 to 90 the cites population of has shrunk to the streetcars have been running since april two weeks after the capture of the most Homes have electricity and sign sticking from the rubble in the main Street of Cologne states give me five years and you will not recognize it is signed by Adolph it is estimated that Cologne is 75 percent the cites famous Only slightly towers High above the the population of Cologne is More than under the prewar Bremen the port is being repaired to Supply Allied occupation the City itself is about 50 Perce Jit the Dock area and most of the business District Are the population has fallen from deaths from bombing were estimated at is estimated unofficially that fewer than 400 buildings Are undamaged in the main Section of this manufacturing the great raids of october 1944 killed approximately with casualties in one raid where have the hundreds of of per sons missing from the cities gone Many Are dead some Are in the Allied cages As prisoners Many went to Small towns in Hope of escaping the the refugees to the smaller towns Are coming Back some Riding in wagons and some push ing like the returning men of the wehrmacht they find often that their Homes Are gone and their neighbors Homes Are Many times the neighbors Are there Are wreaths in the rubble serving notice that some of the neighbors will not be can anything be done about expediting democracy in Germany no one knows All the but among the people who Deal with the germans the enlisted pay men in dozens of jobs there is a surprising agreement on some these men do not pose As they base their opinions on their own experience of recent they dont pretend to have All the an or even most of but they think it would be Plain horse sense to review our hand Ling of some German and to try to Correct old these usually interviewed one at a urged that the Young nazis be separated from the older nazis in the Allied the Young nazis often show unmistakable coaching by their older Many americans that the ardor and stamina of the Young nazis brew dangerously with the cunning of the Veteran party that All Effort be made to prevent any one German political group from monopolizing the administrative jobs in the Liberal and left Wing groups in Germany voice resent ment against what they term preference of some Allied officials for members of the or right that Liaison be tightened Between counter intelligence and military one Cic officer told of being introduced to a Man who had been chosen by the military government As Bue Germeister and finding the Man was a former a Captain whom he had been Hunting for two that the Allied participation in the reeducation of Germany be assigned to the highest Type men and women even though they must be persuaded and pressured into taking these hard jobs at a the americans who were interviewed emphasized that the through All Media of must not Only be told the truth of what is happening in the must be simply and of what has happened for 12 if Hacks handle this said a military government then were wetting away whatever Chance there is to make decent human beings out of the that amplification be made of the american economic policy in Many american officials seemed unclear on How far they should proceed in permitting factories to and what factories would receive Early factories by proved until now the allies have been occupied largely in getting the necessary utilities Back in that More stringent precautions be taken to keep nazis out of administrative or any kind of in the municipal governments in and that no nazi Ever be appointed unless there was no other qualified Man for the Many americans close to the situation Felt that the had lost stature in its advocacy of democracy by turning to the nazis for help in some these were on thespot opinions by men trying to do a the final answers will be written much by the Sun slanted Down on the people gathered silently in the and etched the lettering on it Gray which seemed oddly out of place amid the pleasant the inscription on the Tombstone stated Here lie seven victims of the this memorial recalls Germany most shameful a gaunt Man with a lined face stood beside the heaped Mounds of looking at the people who stood before beyond the people and All sides of them sprawled the bombed buildings and the bomb pitted streets of the Man was Hermann an he had just come Home to Back from Buchenwald concentration no said Hermann Ziller knows the identity of the seven persons buried they were found tortured to death at Gestapo head now these people have been brought Here for decent As a living reminder of the Depths to which our people have Hermann Ziller was Pale and grave As he made his speech in the and he spoke very As though he wanted every word to be simple and too Many germans watched the horror grow and did he we Here saved at the last by men of Good will from other it May be that our people will be hated wherever they walk for half a Century to yet before we Are doomed forever As outcasts unfit for the company of Good i Hope that the people of other lands will re member that the risks of fighting were torture and this Isa har Choice to let men of All lands search their own souls would they have risen in their own countries against their own leaders and risked castration and death As an old As a fighter for the 1 made no excuses for the shame of too Many of our people did not stand up when the time came to be the people of Germany must admit this shame to and Only then will they be ready to Start the Germany in the summer of 1945 is a guilty land trying to hide from its own freed russian slave labourers ride through the broken red flags rippling from their the russians sing their hoarse marching and raise their right their fists when the russians do the germans look the other Germany is a land where Hermann a Good walks Side by Side with Ger Man women who once came from their Homes and threw scalding water on american soldiers wounded in the its cleanup time in Aachen and this German housewife is having a thought about cleaning up her living l this is in some germans wonder if Germany can Ever rebuild her German families come Back to the cities from which they had fled to escape