ESSEN & COLOGNE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 133, 7 June 1945, Page 4

ESSEN & COLOGNE

SMASHED CITIES

REBUILDING MAY NOT TAKE VERY LONG

(By James Lansdalc Hodson.)

LONDON, May 15. Yesterday I visited Essen, today Cologne. Both are in ruins. Death has walked abroad in both, and in both the stillness of death prevails. Krupps has workshops that are veritable cathedrals of ruin, dim even by daylight in their chaos of twisted girders and torn and ravaged masonryCologne is even quieter, if that be possible. Only 50,000 of its old-time 780,000 live there now. In the main they are folk who stayed .. because they had no other place to go. They live now in cellars, in air-raid shelters, and in such working class tenements as were not too gravely damaged. A number are at work on restoring the sewers, on sorting out the railway marshalling yards, on the telephone cables, on the water supply, and on electricity. They draw 1100 callories of food daily, which no doctor would pretend is enough, and I am told by the United States Military Government officials that the food situation is likely to get worse before it is better. We do what we can. LIFE GROWS SLOWLY. Two hundred further people drift back each week, and once weekly we [distribute 20,000 copies of a newspaper in German. An American sergeant who speaks German spends his I time in driving from one point to another to read radio news giving the Military Government directives and answers to questions. He takes two days to cover the city. Sometimes 500 people wait to hear him. There is a project, as yet undecided, to fix up daily news sheets in the streets. People can hunger for news as they do for food. We have been in Cologne several weeks longer than in Essen, and in some ways have naturally made more progress. In Cologne we have found 30 million marks in various banks, and have advanced money to the city to pay workmen for clearing up. The Burgomaster was the treasurer of the city from 1915 to 1933. In nine hospitals 1056 beds are occupied; health generally is pretty good. Some typhus that occurred was stamped out, and a few cases that have broken out in the past fortnight have been in refugee camps. Displaced persons are numerous —8000 Russians, 6000 Poles —all in camps, and a further- camp for Western European nationals. One whole hospital is devoted to "displaced, persons" (for slave labour). No schools are yet open nor trade unions yet formed, though the latter question was first raised a month ago when shellnre had not completely ceased in the neighbourhood. I ask,ed what crimes are committed. The answer was that there had been no sniping of our troops, but in the beginning a vast lot of looting went on, and this week among the Germans sentenced has been one man to a year's imprisonment, a second to nine months, and two others to four months, for trying to bribe U.b. guards on the matter of a wine cellar. Most offences tried were for _ having shotguns in the house or being out after curfew. For the first, the sentences have been severe—up to ten years; for such as the latter, fines of 1*6,400 marks were in all inflicted during the first month, and the figure is rising rather than falling. From 20 to 50 Germans are tried each day. Fines are readily paid. One man, when asked "How do you plead? at once replied "How much?" taking out, Germans in Cologne give comparatively little trouble. They are described to me by the Military Government officials as not fanatical, not typical Nazis, and mostly poorly off I asked a former railway secretary, middle-aged, whom I met in a ruined railway station what he thought of Hitler's death. He said that he didn't believe Hitler was dead, but thought it a typical ruse to get away disguised, but he said: We aie all glad here that the Nazis are finished." Allowing for the wish to ingratiate himself with us, there is probably substance in the suggestion Sat the Rhineland Catholics were less ardent Nazis than many others, j TIME TO REBUILD. This man thought it would take 20 years to rebuild Cologne, this city whose destruction is sometimes put at 90 per cent. But who knows how long it will take? The Hohenzollern River bridge is broken in two, and I walked down a piece which goes into the> water at a % degrees descent. The cathedral is a house of lubble,its towers pitted as. though by smallpox. No glass remained m any building We edged our car even today thfough piles of rubble. But 20 years! 1 fdSubt' it the more from what I Se Yet our British Military GoySnment officers are so impressed. witii the energy and resilience and imtia S^S^^Sfin^ monSs after the word 'go* they will haves a bridge over the Rhine and be turning out large quantities of steeL Even now some work is going on in Krupps though Krupps looks flat. A second British officer said to me. "The Germans here are very smart. They will be running tins place long before we shall. I have been dealing with the director of the R^ichsbank. That director had taken certain steps three days before we had thought oi them." An American officer concerned with coal said: "Rehabilitation in Germany will be quite simple. All you have to do is sit these men around a table and tell them what to do, and they will do it." He smiled dryly. He meant what he said. He added: "Krupps is not as destroyed as it looks—some of the damage is superficial. I was driving through the city with a German steel man. I asked him how long it will take to restore Essen. He replied: "Five years!" When we have allowed for German bombast we had better take a careful note of what these Germans say and of the impressions our men are ! forming. A fortnight ago the Germans of Essen were a trifle dazed. I don't think they are dazed now. The Oberburgomaster is a man of 37, Krupp yonboland, also 37, is living in luxury in his house under "house arrest." The head of our Military Government said to me: "Ask these Germans for anything you want and they will produce it." Some 300,000 people (about half the normal number) are still living in Essen, and I am assured that there is no unemployment. About 100,000 are believed to be working a considerable number of them at coal mines. COAL PRODUCTION. Not that the coal mines are producing anything like normally. Their output, I am informed, is not, at an outside estimate, more than 25 per cent, of their normal output. Pit props are very short, electricity isn't normal, and labour is short. Our Minisry of Economic Warfare had estimated that the coalminers' slave labour plus prisoner of war labour was 60 per cent. The Germans put it at 40 per cent. But that 40 per cent, isn't working now. Moreover, there is but little transport to ■ move the coal from the pithead when it is raised. But the Germans are sanguine and they desperately want to get the coal mines going. Our air bombing had damaged them comparatively little, the artillery had damaged them more. They are not asking what is to become of the coal when raised—not yet, though they must be pondering the matter. So I am assured. They are anxious to co-operate or pretend to be. German crime in Essen is small. It is displaced persons who account for 75 per cent, of it. Often at night shots can be heard —and often it is the Russians shooting at Germans. Some murders have occurred. But the Germans have committed plenty of atrocities. Three days ago we found in a bomb crater 35 Russian bodies shot with their hands tied behind their backs. They had been dead a fortnight.. Our Military Government gathered the nearest civilian Germans together and forced them, sometimes with nothing but their, hands, to exhume those bodies. Then were further summoned 30 Burgomasters, who were forced to kneel each one at the head of a Russian corpse while an

American clergyman said prayers. After that the Russians were buried in new graves.

That is one side of Essen—of the Essen that was. This is another side: jAs the head of the Military Government talked to me. a little German child —say ten years old—came into the room unannounced and smiling at us walked to a vase of tulips on the window-ledge and proceeded to change the flowers. We didn't know who she was. She did her small task and smiled and said, "Auf wiedershen," and went out again. There are other manifestations of friendliness, when you stop to ask, the way half a dozen people gather round to try and help you. You would almost think we had come to liberate them, not to conquer them. SOMETHING TO REMEMBER. It was best to be cautious. In some towns leaflets signed by werewolves are being pushed through letter-boxes threatening death to collaborationists. Our occupation is in its early stages. Will German co-operation continue on friendly terms? Or will resentment grow? My impression is that our Military Government offices are often under-staffed and that many officers speak no German. I suspect the truth is that we don't possess enough men who speak German and have the other right qualities of administrators. Can we remedy this deficiency 7? I judge the matter to be of hign importance. Right government of Germany depends on having the right men in adequate numbers. Meanwhile the impression of our officers in Essen—an impression of enormous German vitality and drive — should, I suggest, be very carefully I noted. As for the countryside the Germans, I see, are toiling from morn till night. Their capacity for work is prodigious. This capacity for work plus their docility has been menace in the past. They are qualities we must not forget in thinking of Germany's future.