IMPRESSIONS OF COLOGNE

Southland Times, Issue 25618, 10 March 1945, Page 5

IMPRESSIONS OF COLOGNE

GIRLS OFFER BEER TO - AMERICANS (Rec. 9.45 p.m.) LONDON, March 9. The civilians of Cologne have their cellars stocked with jams, preserves and sauerkraut which they hand out freely to the Americans, according to a sergeant of the first company to enter Cologne, says Reuter’s correspondent at SHAEF. The civilians were at first timid, but became bolder when they saw the Allies did not intend to murder them, making it difficult for the Americans to observe the “no fraternization” rule. The sergeant said: “It is awfully hard to keep that icy stare when girls offer us beer, preserves and bread and want to make our acquaintance.”

Some civilians reacted to the capture of Cologne with an exuberance bordering on the carnival spirit, says the Cologne correspondent of the Associated Press. Drunken men and women staggere'd from side to side of the cobbled streets, waving wine bottles and offering drinks to the Americans. The Americans arrested all the police, mistaking them for members of the Wehrmacht, after which there was widespread looting of the warehouses. Many civilians carried away big boxes of cheese, cases of liquor and clothing. One officer said: “The Germans in Cologne are the most obnoxious we have yet met.” PSYCHOLOGICAL COLLAPSE

The most striking characteristic of the Rhineland population is a combination of material loss with a state of psychological collapse, says a correspondent of The Daily Telegraph. “That there will be any wholesale people’s war on the scale of the Spanish guerrilla resistance to Napoleon, or to Marshal Tito’s Partisans, I simply do not believe. These people are too tired, too disorganized and too frightened. Their attitude towards the invaders is apathetic, timid or obsequious.” The Cologne correspondent of the British United Press quotes one Cologne civilian as saying: “Everyone in the Rhineland has known for some time that the war is lost.” Civilians who crossed the Rhine before the destruction of the bridges said: “The people on the other side are eagerly awaiting the Allies. They cannot understand why you have not crossed before.”

VISIT TO TUNNELS A correspondent of The Daily Express described his visit to one of the tunnels under the debris of Cologne where most of the civilians lived for the past two years. “As we entered, about 50 German women rose to their feet and bowed,” he wrote. “They said they had enough food for six weeks In the second basement, two storeys below the ground, they had storerooms turned into underground shops with electric light, scales and cash desks.” The correspondent says that walking through the streets of Rhineland villages—Herman Goering Strasse, Adolf Hitler platz and Horst Wessel strasse — he noticed many householders had scrawled on their doors: “Holland,” or “Dutch family live here.” A British security officer told him that German families often send Dutch or other ‘foreign servants to the front door to make a good impression.

OFFICERS’ SUICIDE PACT

Germans Copy Japanese

(Rec. 9 p.m.) LONDON, March 9. The Correspondent of the Associated Press with the American 3rd Army says an American lieutenant recently watched two German officers copy their Japanese Allies. When the lieutenant’s platoon surrounded them, the two officers took careful aim and killed each other.