Foreign News: At the Bridge

Toward the American lines streamed caravans of weary, frightened Germans.

They were fleeing in terror from the Russians. At Grossbothen, a hamlet by the Mulde River, the refugees milled around the barricaded bridge.

In the crowd one woman stood out, a tall blond woman in a grey-green woolen suit with a green alpine hat, woolen stockings, and heavy walking shoes. Despite the pack on her back, she walked erect.

To the American guard at the bridge she gave a note addressed to his commander.

It was signed Princess Elisabeth Solms-Lich, with the notation, “Relative of English Royal Family” (her cousin, she said was the Grand Duke of Hesse, a great grandson of Queen Victoria). With her husband, Otto Vossler, who described himself as Professor at the American Leipzig University, and former Harvard student.

TIME Correspondent BUI Walton, who was present, tells what followed:

Both held themselves aloof from the throng, waiting impatiently for a reply. When the answer came back negative, the Princess stormed in a torrent of German and stilted English, then wept while her harassed, haggard husband tried to comfort her. Other refugees looked on incuriously, each wrapped in his own cares. When her weeping slackened, she turned to the G.I. guarding the bridge with an ingratiating smile: “But you don’t understand, they are going to kill me.”

“Who’s going to kill you?” asked the soldier.

“The Russians.”

“How do you know?”

“They killed my brother and my cousin,” she said tremulously, “I know I am on their list. They would kill me next. They are so cruel.”

She was clutching now at his dirty uniform, looking up under his battered helmet.

“Lady, don’t you know they are our allies? If you are their enemy, you are ours too. Besides, you Germans started this war.”

“But I am a woman. Women don’t make war.”

“Yeah? Plenty of women are members of the SS and Volkssturm. And look at what you Germans did to people in every country where your Army went.”

“Oh, but we didn’t have anything to do with that. Those were the politicians and the generals. Not us.”

“Seems like I’ve heard that one before,” said the soldier. “Now that you’re beaten, nobody was a Nazi. It was some other guys.”

The Princess’ face was white and tense, her thin hands clutched together. As she talked she tried to smile, but there was desperate urgency in her face. Her husband, even more distraught, muttered hoarsely: “But we had no part in it, no part in it.”

“It was your Government, wasn’t it?” said the soldier. “You supported your own Government, didn’t you?” The Princess and her husband fell silent. Finally she turned to the guard for one last try.

“Is there to be no compassion?”

The guard, without changing his expression, said: “You cannot cross the river.”