GERMAN CIVILIANS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 80, 10 April 1945, Page 5

GERMAN CIVILIANS

| ATTITUDE TO ALLIED ARMIES I MORE FRIENDLY THAN NEED BE London, April 9. ; “Despite ail the bombs, despite all the propaganda, the Germans don’t 1 seem to hate us” says the “Daily Mail’s” | correspondent on the Western Front, i - T don’t think there is anything proGerman in saying this. It is simply an I obvious demonstrable fact that they ■ are even more friendly than they need 1 be. They go out of their way to do things for us. If you go into a village inn the hostess welcomes you. If you ask for a beer she gives it and says ‘we give it willingly. All we wpnt is peace.’ ‘•We thought this was going to be a painful journey through a land of hatred, scowls and shots in the back. It tqrns out to fle nothing of the sort. Germany, partly by accident, partly by design, is showing the best of herself to our armies. Consciously or unconsciously the sympathy propaganda has started already. Our troops are getting the impression of a beautiful well- | ordered country populated by docile, i friendly domesticated people. The fanI tastic dualism of Germany is asserting i itself. We are seeing her tamest and I most attractive face. I am sure what v. - e are seeing is genuine. These people are too stupid and too ordinary for it to be a deliberate plot, but there are good reasons to explain it. First, these [ people are Germans, but they are not | the Germans. They are old men. wo- ! men. girls and children. We have not met the young or middle-aged men save as prisoners. Secondly, anyone who has been an active Nazi has gone. Thirdly, we are passing through largely country districts. Fourthly, there is a real belief that the war is over and their instinct therefore is to work for a mild sentence. They want to show us they are decent, honest, civilised ordinary folk- like ourselves. They want to show they are not responsible for what has happened.” SLAVE WORKERS’ REVENGE The "Daily Express” correspondent says some slave workers in the bigger towns are now enjoying savage revenge. German women at Osnabruck stood quietly at doorways under damp white tablecloths of surrender, looking fearfully at gangs of shabby laughing slaves trekking by. They looted houses and slashed open cellars. Streets are as deep in broken bottles as ever they were from broken windows after bombings. Houses set on fire by free foreign workers at night glow and flicker in the rain. We have no time to halt. The problem of quieting the will and triumph of men who worked behind barbed wire for so long must be tackled later. ' Reuter’s correspondent with the United States Seventh Army says that after a journey of 200 miles inside Germany during wTiicfi he talked to German soldiers and civilians, he believes most Germans know very little of the war. He adds that none of the Germans to whom he spoke had ever heard a commentary by Captain Sertorius, Walter Plato, or von Hammer, whose names are familiar in Allied newspapers throughout the world. One reason is that most of the radios conform to the standard “People’s Wireless” which receives only local stations. Many Germans thus did not know the war was so close to them until Allied troops bunt into their towns.