MEEK AND DOCILE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 82, 4 October 1944, Page 5

MEEK AND DOCILE

GERMANS IN OCCUPIED AREA

(Special P.A. Correspondent.) • Rec. 12 40 p.itn. LONDON, October 3. The behaviour, of the 9000 Germans living in the Allied occupied area round Kornelimunster (five miles south-east of Aachen), has been "exemplary, but utterly negative and blank" during the past two weeks, writes a "Daily Mail" correspondent. An official told him: "The Germans have been, regimented so long that obeying orders has become natural to them. They expect us to do their thinking for them. Our job here is much easier than it was in some parts of France, where #ie people liked asking questions."

The correspondent points out that it is largely a rural area,* where Nazism was never strong*'and from where most of tho Nazis fled before the Allies arrived. "The people who have remained," he says, "are meek and decile. If they are seen in the streets —Which is rare, because the Allied Orders are that for the present they must stay in or near their homes— they give completely blank looks. They do not appear to be relieved, afraid, apprehensive, or resentful—just blank. "One of the first things the Allied forces did was to order complete disarmament, and as a result the Allied military government has accumulated an , amazing collection of shot-guns, rifles, pistols, daggers, and duelling swords. All Germans have been registered, and passes which must be renewed daily have been issued to docttirs, midwives, and key tradesmen to enable, them to move about more freely. -Everyone must observe the curfew, which begins at 7 p.m. and ends at 6 a.m Few Germans have SW 1 any^ticlination to move about. I™}! 6 ihe t Gerrflahs a,re.having to live to.themselves, there is no privation because nearly every house is stocked $*?* f5 r&ege. Some civilians have heen appointed polidemen to direct

c^r?v^?a^f ly f^e sub^ct' Germans ¥?J y dUI orders 1S exemplified by the 2???? of 4 newly-appointed burgomaster, who was told that if 'there were members of the Wehrmacht in hiding he must turn them mV He soon S&T* .^l6 soldiersfwho were absent without leave."