GERMANY: Cops & Robbers

“The Hun,” said Winston Churchill, “is always either at your throat or at your feet.” Definitely at the Allies’ feet when they invaded Germany, “the Hun” last week showed signs of getting up again.

Perhaps catching on to democratic ways, Germans began to gripe—at Allied “inefficiency,” at the coming Nurnberg trials of big war criminals. Thousands of unemployed men had ample time for mischief. Here & there, snipers were still active. At night, G.I.s found wires strung across highways, intended to decapitate motorcyclists. U.S. Army cars were looted. German girls suspected of fraternizing were waylaid and warned.

In the U.S. zone, anti-U.S. organizations began to crystallize. Most of them consisted only of a dozen or so young men who just seemed fond of playing cops & robbers. So. in their early days, did some of Adolf Hitler’s brown shirts.