FOR WOMEN RULED FOR A DAY

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 237, 6 October 1945, Page 9

FOR WOMEN RULED FOR A DAY

HITLER'S HOME TOWN

AMERICAN WOMAN IN CHARGE

Out of Germany comes an interesting story of the first American woman in military government, Patricia Lockridge, of Washington. She ruled Hitler's home town, Berchtesgaden, for one day and promulgated in that brief time some wise decrees.

Slight, blonde, 27 years old, Miss Lockridge, an accredited woman war correspondent, left San Francisco less than a year ago on h°r first overseas assignment, and was in Iwo Jima in time to cover the evacuation of the wounded to the hospital ship Solace, states a San Francisco correspondent.

In Germany, Miss Lopkridge was given her extraordinary assignment by a military government 9fficial of the 101 st Airborne Division to enable her, as he put it, "to inform the United States about conditions in Berchtesgaden." "The tasks at Berchtesgaden are duplicated throughout Germany," reports Miss Lockridge. "It is typical of most small towns in the American zone . . . but luckier than many, as most of the town is intact, and water, electricity, and sewage systems are all operating." As the town's major problem was food shortage, the girl governor's first official act was to send to the nearest German food depot for provisions. Then she issued her first proclamation: "All able-bodied Germans will immediately start cultivation of vegetable gardens and grow foodstuffs for home consumption." Other orders forbade the use of rubber stamps with Nazi insignia to sign documents, and proclaimed that people of the town must remove, within one week's time, all Nazi militaristic insignia on street signs and buildings. Streets received new names. Adolf Hitler Strasse became Maximilian Strasse and Horst Wesselberg was named Moosweg. All literature preaching Nazi and militaristic doctrines was confiscated by the military government, and the schools of the town remained closed until trusted teachers were found and textbooks written previous to the Nazi area located. Miss Lockridge's major industry problem was to get the small frightened business men to reopen their shops. "The German men, women, and children," she writes, "appear healthy in sad contrast to other Europeans, but there is a shortage of medical supplies. Complete religious freedom is being practised already, and everyone favours encouraging the Germans' return to religion."