Evening star., 1946-03-26


doctor in big hospital or the
plant manager of key industry,
he stays until satisfactory replace
ment has been found. If he
demonstrates that he is properly
repentant, he may stay anyway.
3. The Russians do not fraternize
with frauleins, at least not in the
careless, irresponsible way the
Americans do. The rambunctious-
ness of combat days, typical of any
shooting army, has been replaced
by rigid discipline. There are no
outward signs of any reign of terror
to be seen, although the Russians,
unquestionably, are rougher on
political nonconformists than we
are.
Factories Humming.
The Russians like to report "hard-
ly any unemployment" in their zone
and factories do appear to be hum
ming at far faster pace than else
where in Germany. The lions share
of production is going to Russia as
lcpdTdLlOIlS, llOWcVeT.
Our party of seven correspondents
was the third American party to
visit the zone. We picked Thuringia,
rich, beautiful state, a little small
er than Connecticut, where no AL
lied reporter had been since last
July, when the Americans withdrew
In three United States Army staff
cars (the Russians supplied the gas
in the zone) We drove from Berlin
10 Weimar, the state capital, cele-
brated as the home of Goethe. We
were accompanied by an interpreter,
famed Janya, charming little girl
whom we called the Moscow Mouse -
and liaison officer named Boris, a
handsome young lieutenant who
loves to sing My Bonnie Lies Over
the Ocean'-in Russian.
No house dick ever kept a more
conscientious eye on country maid
en- to steer her wide of the sins of
the big town than the battery of
army and plain clothes agents we
acquired kept on us. Yet their gum
shoeing was hard to reconcile with
the honesty and open friendliness
we got from the splendid Red Army
officers with whom we discussed, for
hours on end, subjects ranging from
the German political clumsiness to
the beauty of females from the
Ukraine.
Rreakfasts Are Dinners
Breakfast under Soviet auspices
almost invariably consisted of ham,
salami, champagne, dill pickles,
fried potatoes, beer, raw herring
frosted cake and vodka. We had
Three banquets almost every day
except when we got into an argu-
ment over the Churchill l-Stalin row,
but that's another story. The well
kin rang and rang and rang with
the collision of crystal glasses and
the resonance of our toasts.
I think we were permitted to see
more than any non-Russian cor
respondent has yet seen in the So
Wet zone. We visited farms, fac
tories, stores, theaters. We met Ger
man government officials, party
leaders, labor leaders, workers, busi-
nessmen, housewives. We even in
spected Red Army barracks.
Only two of our formal requests
were denied We were not allowed
to see Bucnenwald and we were not
supposed TO 60 anywhere without an
escort. The former Nazi concentra-
ton camp was being used as Rus
sian troop training center, they said
but we learned that part of it, ap-
parently, had been converted into
an internment camp for Germans.
The escorts were for our personal
safety, they said, for If anything
happened to us it would be rough
on them.
Whether you like it or not. the
political machinery in the Soviet
zone is gathering such momentum
that when the zonal boundaries of
the Allied occupation are erased We
may wake up to find it running the
whole nation
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