Evening star., 1939-10-23
Nazis Send Taxicab
For Reporter 10 Make
Tour Over West Wall
Every One Pleasant, No
One Pays Any Attention tc
American or His Speech
By ROBERT ]. CASEY,

correspondent has completed q
jaunt across the Siegfried Line in
a taxicab. That's right. taxi
cab! Every day this odd war gets
odder.
There has been plenty OF guess
work concerning possible German
advance on this front. Constant
Smelling to the south, frequent pa
troll actions and the tactical with
drawal of the French from mo
mans land positions have given
credence to it. But when one is
allowed to wander across the bel
llgerent frontier and chin with gun
crews and builders of artillery en-
placements and officers of the line,
he may be pardoned his doubts.
1t is incredible that any such per-
formance could take place outside
Alice in Wonderland. In 1918 Ger
many was mysterious bourne
that no American thought he ever
would see. Death guarded its bor-
ders. The living crossed into its
shadows only as miserable prisoners
OF war. Nowadays the trip to the
front and behind it is easily ar
ranged in Luxembourg by 2O-cent
telephone call.
Trip Is Permitted.
You toy with your breakfast roll
In Luxembourg and think. that it
might be an instructive experience
to1ook at the Siegfried Line. Impos-
slele, Of course. but worth try.
You walk over to the German con-
suate. You pay a visa fee, about
$3s and you are on your way.
You know. of course, that it is
hardly in order to drive car with
French license plates over the line
But that is something of no conse-
quence. You telephone to Treves,
NaA army base, and ask that taxi
cab be sent to meet you at the bar
rler on the frontier. You drive leis-
urely to Wasserbillig and park your
car. You walk across the bridge,
pass the time of day with pleasant
Schutzstaffel elite Guards and in
fantrymen, declare what money YOU
are bringing with you, and that is
all there is to it.
You hit the beginning of the
Slegfried Line Immediately after
crossing the Sure River. If YOU
were not able to see the asparagus
neds-the tremendous graveyard of
concrete spikes designed to stop
tanks-somebody would be glad to
show you. The hills are ridged
with artillery classmates and ma
chlne-gun nests with cabbage gar
dens atop them for camoufage.
Pillbox Farmhouses.
All along the route are farm
houses within whose ancient shells
have been built pillboxes with walls
IL feet thick. Against the red sand.
stone cliffs Of the Moselle Valley
are tremendous blockhouses so close
to the highway that you might
reach out and touch them, so well
painted that they are invisible at
100 yards. Barbed-wire entangle-
ments are strewn along the raging
river. Here is an anti-aircraft bat
terry concealed from above by a
camouf1age net but easily seen from
the road. A few rods farther on
is a battery of anti-tank guns in
an implacement whose pattern is
repeated endlessly as far as the eye
can follow the hills.
All across the horizon brown clad
boys of the labor battalions bur-
row into slopes and direct the un-
ceaslng flow of the river of wet con-
crete. The Siegfried Line seems to
be becoming long chain of little
Verduns.
1t is only II kilometers (over 61k
niles from Wasserbillig to Treves.
The taxi stops at the Porta Negri
Hotel in the shadow of the old Ro-
man gate. The town is seething
with soldiers who look just like Ger
man "soldaten" always looked
"feldgrau" uniforms, heavy leather
boots. They give wavering green
tlnge to the streets. There are no
private automobiles but the dizzy
traf11c OF army cars. trucks, cais-
sons, staff cars with caterpillar
treads. Trans are running. Shops
are open and doing brisk business,
mostly with soldiers. The civilian
population has not been evacuated.
English Attracts No Attention.
The hotel is in turmoil because
DR.. Robert Ley, chief of the Labor
Front and one of the most inf1uen-
tlal men in Germany, is holding a
conference with Gen. Mattenklott,
commander of Treves and numer-
GUS other brass hats. But the man.
ager has time to greet the guest
from beyond the line and speaks
English loudly without attracting
any attention from the officers mill
ing through the lobby Nobody Wor-
ries about the American accent here
or IN the beer stubes or on the
streets. An obvious Gestapo agent
sldles up and takes a look at you
but goes away. A captain steps off
the narrow sidewalk to let you pass
and it's all pretty bewildering.
Comes night and you embark once
more in your taXi-nervous?- pos
siblv Soldiers with memories of
another war do not fit too we'll in
this. One Journeys again through
the Siegfried line. One meets IN
fantrymen on the march. singing
And one comes again to the from
tier reception committee. One ex-
poets formality. perhaps search.
But there isn't any. The soldiers
at the bridge are more interested ii
hearing what one thinks of Ger.
many than in digging about for
smuggled money
Whatever may be the condition OF
Herr Hitler's troops elsewhere, he
is we'll represented on this border
These boys are smart, pleasant and
well set up. They agree that Joy
riding through the lines is bizarre
but feel that sightseeing in Treeves
is excusable even In wartime. They
hope that maybe the stranger will
come back again-in the summer,
perhaps, when the gardens are
blooming and the town is at its
best.