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Press Comments

Bricks and Bouquets for
OCCUPATION

    BECAUSE of the alleged growing Germanophilia of officers and men and the "low caliber" of personnel, the occupation forces came under fire from several commentators during the week while other observers stressed the constructive accomplishments of American Military Government. In both its editorial and news columns, the press continued to devote much attention to the economic and political problems involved in the four-power administration of Germany.
   Attacking the "growing Germanophilia" of officers and men, Edgar Mowrer, in the New York Post, warned of the political dangers of fraternization with German women. "Officers not only do not hesitate themselves to fraternize with former enemies, but do nothing to counteract the political susceptibility of enlisted men to German propaganda," he declared. "That American soldiers should be eager to frequent Nazi molls and murderer's sweethearts is not good," Mowrer said. "That they should in the process acquire venereal disease is bad. But that in the process they should acquire and bring home political syphilis is intolerable."
   Equally critical of the alleged influence of the German Frauleins, Time magazine said: "The necessary dependence on interpreters, the striking number of higher-rank officers in residence with mistresses of vanished Nazi bigwigs, the general air of maladroitness and cumbersome effort has given rise to a bitter description. By Germans and by many a discerning GI, the U.S. occupation rule of Germany and Austria was being called 'the government of interpreters and mistresses'."
   In an article in the Nation, entitled "How the Nazis Stay In," Saul K. Padover takes Military Government to task for allegedly failing to keep nazis out of office. "Were Military Government officers consciously pro-nazi?" the article asked. "I think not. I am convinced that it was a case of political ignorance and moral indifference. They not only knew nothing about German problems or the German language, but, with one or two exceptions, they had no understanding or interest in the causes and problems of the war and hence no feelings about nazism, for or against."
   Another example of current criticism in the press was the statement of Richard I. Davies, chairman of the Philadelphia Foreign Policy Committee, on his return from a European tour, that "America's greatest handicap in Germany is the low caliber of the officers and soldiers assigned to Military Government duty."
   Defenders in the press were not lacking to Military Government. While conceeding that the American press is doing an excellent service by its frank criticisms, a Manchester Guardian dispatch from Munich declared that "it is equally important that the constructive achievements of American Military Government in Germany should also be kept in mind. There are faults in the American Zone as in all the other zones of occupation, but there is also sincere effort to rebuild Germany for democracy. General Eisenhower gives

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