PLAIN PEOPLE: And Who Is My Neighbor?

From Vienna, TIME Correspondent John Walker cabled:

When a nation and a continent are sick at soul, it may sometimes happen that some seemingly irrelevant incident, some senseless isolated instance of violence or stupidity, serves better than acres of learned analysis to yield a bright flash of insight into the breakdown of normal social and human standards. Such an incident occurred last week near Wiener-Neudorf, in Austria’s Russian zone.

Out on the highway, put-putting toward Vienna, was a motorcycle carrying Herman Reitman, well-known Viennese motorbike rider, and a woman companion, Katharina Grünhut. A light sedan going faster in the same direction came up from behind and apparently started to pass. Then inexplicably the vehicles swerved together, the motorcycle bounced off to the side of the road, where its two passengers lay groaning. A few passers-by ran up to them. The sedan braked to a stop farther down the road and the driver climbed out and walked back. Taking a hasty glance at the scene, he drew a pistol, ordered the bystanders back and shot the two injured people to death. Then he walked back to his car and drove on. The witnesses were so stunned that nobody even noted his license number.