Who Wants to Be Mayor?

From the ruins of Aachen last week emerged a man who was willing, if not eager, to run the first non-Nazi city in the Reich. Herr X (the U.S. Army censorship withheld his name) agreed to be Aachen's first post-Hitler, democratic mayor. Of Aachen's 166,000 residents, only 3,000 remained, only 24 were deemed trustworthy, only five were willing to take the job.

Herr X was a lawyer, fortyish, balding, apparently pleased by his new masters, a little uneasy about the old. The record showed that he was neither Nazi nor Communist, just a solid, sober citizen who minded his own affairs. His conduct under Hitler seemed to have been as anti-Nazi as was consistent with safety.

On the grey, foggy day when he was sworn in by Army officers, Herr X looked nervous and tense, stared straight in front of him, spoke only when spoken to. A correspondent asked him: "Do you have a house here?" Herr X answered carefully: "Ja, but it is not standing." As the oath of office was read aloud, he listened attentively, solemnly responded: "Ja." Next day Herr X climbed into a captured German car and drove into his bomb-scarred municipality in search of equally reliable citizens to be his councilors, civil officers, policemen. As Buergermeister, his own authority will be the same as in peacetime--except that the U.S. Army will pass on what he does.

By nightfall the Buergermeister had quietly assembled 25 middle-aged police recruits who will be allowed to patrol the streets wearing arm bands. Their first task: rounding up armed Nazi youths who snipe at Allied soldiers (see cut).

The Berlin radio broadcast in English: "The Allies have been unable to find a person willing to take over the post of mayor of Aachen. Not a single German would consent to take this office."

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