NO G

A generation ago, when the citizens of Frankfurt am Main broke into open revolt just before the 1918 armistice, the city survived. In World War II, because Nazi bullets erased the will to rebel, the city has been destroyed. This week TIME Correspondent Percy Knauth reported what he found among Frankfurt's ruins:

There was no Goetterdaemmerung in Frankfurt when the Americans came. There was no glorious suicidal stand by "a people in arms," as the Nazi propaganda says.

I asked a man what he had done in Frankfurt's last days under Naziism. "I was supposed to report to Volkssturm Headquarters," he said. "When I got there, they were all drunk and nobody was doing anything; so I rode away on my bicycle."

Sunday afternoon, as a last gesture, Nazi officials issued general orders to the population to evacuate the city. They themselves were the first to leave. It was an ignominious end to one of Naziism's great strongholds. There remains a desolate, ruined city, peopled with perhaps 150,000 weary, spiritless Germans and about 15,000 foreign slave workers.

The Germans. In Frankfurt's miles and miles of ruins, the residents who stuck it out watch incuriously as the Americans pass. Some smile sheepishly, some tip their hats in a servile manner, some are just plain blank.

In Frankfurt's railway marshaling yards this morning people were searching dispiritedly through crates, bundles and cardboard boxes which they had broken out of a long line of freight cars. One said: "I heard that there was stuff to be gotten here so I came with this pail to see if I could pick up some food. We have had no bread for a week. There's nothing much here, but it seems a pity to just let things rot."

Behind the freight cars a woman started to cry, like a hurt animal. Nobody listened, nobody lifted his head.

The Slaves. Down at the huge aircraft-parts plant of Vereinigung Deutscher Maschinenfabriken, foreign workers milled around the barred gates waiting for tickets to get food.

These slaves were free now--the Russians, Poles, Frenchmen, Dutch, Belgians and Italians who had worked and suffered in this plant for months and even years. They were free, but they did not know what to do. There were very few incidents of violence. Many of them had spent four or five days in the woods after the Nazis turned them loose with half a loaf of bread and a piece of sausage each.

Hunger & Apathy. I met a Frenchman who had just come from the woods and had missed his lunch--his first chance to eat in four days. The canteen was closed, but he had seen a loaf of bread behind a counter and thought I could commandeer a slice for him. He did not realize that there was nothing now to prevent him from taking all the bread he could find.

The girl behind the counter did not seem to realize that times had changed, either. First she told me the place was closed. Then she said to wait. She finally turned up with a man who asked what I wanted.

"I want this man to have some bread," I said.

"We will be serving again at 4:30," said the German. "He should wait until then."

The foreign worker just stood there looking at the loaf of bread in plain view behind the counter.

I said, "Give this man a slice from that loaf there."

The German looked at me, then turned around and said to the girl, "All right, give him a slice. But get his ticket first."

The slaves may not stay as quiet as they are if they continue to get that kind of treatment. They have not realized that they can translate all their memories of misery into action now. If they do, there may be riots yet in Frankfurt.

But for the moment there is nothing here but dullness and apathy. All the propaganda slogans painted on the walls--"Frankfurt stands firm," "Better Death than Slavery"--are nothing but a mocking epitaph.

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