Foreign News: Guests

In the early days of Allied occupation, U.S. troops in Germany lived as high as Roman conquerors. A few parlayed their privileges into tidy personal fortunes; all of them got special prerogatives denied the Germans. Little by little, as circumstances changed a defeated enemy into a necessary ally, occupation authorities trimmed down special privileges. By 1952 it was no longer possible for U.S. Army personnel to get free servants (chargeable to West Germany as an occupation cost), or to ride first-class on a third-class railway ticket. But no amount of self-imposed limitations altered the fact that the Allied occupation troops were essentially immune to German law.

Last week, in special seminars anticipating the sovereign status West Germany will shortly enjoy, U.S. Army units all over Germany were busy teaching the conquerors to become guests. As aliens subject to German law, G.I.s will no longer be exempt from German excise taxes or the compulsory German auto insurance law. If they live in a requisitioned house, they will have to get out within a year. Unlike the Germans themselves, the G.I.s will not be subject to property or income taxes; nor will they be subject to criminal prosecution in German courts (though the German police will have the right to “detain” them under certain conditions).

But most important of all for many a G.I., all occupying forces will in future be subject to German civil jurisdiction. Since British, French and American occupation soldiers have fathered an estimated 150,000 illegitimate German children, this means that many a G.I. (some 70,000 of the children are guessed to be American) now basking in occupation immunity may soon be called to court to account for his sin and support his child.