"You Don't Know What You Want"

Old Blood & Guts was in Dutch again. Lieut. General George S. Patton Jr., Military Governor of Bavaria, had made a fool of himself and had reflected on the whole U.S. Army by holding a press conference and pooh-poohing efforts to rid Germany of Nazis (TIME. Oct. 1).

He had also impugned the policies and orders of his Supreme Commander, Gen eral of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower, who promptly ordered Patton to retract and sent his political adviser, Robert D. Murphy, to Bavaria to investigate Patton's administration.

Patton called the press in for a retake, blamed the whole thing on his unfortunate "analogies" and newspapers' "startling headlines." Then, chafing under his orders, he declared: 1) that what he had said should not "reflect on my commanding officer, General Eisenhower"; 2) that "so vile a thing as Naziism" could not be got rid of overnight. The net implication was that he was right the first time (when he had compared "this Nazi thing" to "a Democratic and Republican election fight").

Mouth v. Brain. Lieut. General Walter Bedell Smith, General Eisenhower's chief of staff, forthwith called a press conference of his own. Growling that General Eisen hower would tolerate no insubordination, General Smith then spoke as one professional soldier practically never speaks of another: "[Patton's] mouth does not al ways carry out the functions of his brain. George acts on the theory that it is better to be damned than say nothing--that some publicity is better than none."

A few hours after investigators had returned from Bavaria (a first glance had revealed that 20 Nazi bigshots were still in office), General Patton reported in person to Eisenhower at Frankfurt.

After two and a half hours, a stern-faced "Ike" and a smiling but silent Patton emerged from Eisenhower's office. They had nothing to say. But news soon popped in Bavaria: investigations, raids, hurried dismissals. Patton accepted the resignation of Minister President Friedrich Schaeffer and installed Wilhelm Hoegner, a veteran Social Democrat with a long anti-Nazi record. These overnight reforms notably failed to include the dismissal of George S. Patton Jr.

Forgetting Is So Easy. General Eisen hower himself realized that "deNazification" was easier said than done. Said he in a report on the occupation this week (see FOREIGN NEWS) : "It is not easy for the local Military Government Officer to dismiss the only waterworks engineer in his city because he was an active Nazi. The decision must be made, however. . . ." The hard fact was that many U.S. officers in Germany refused to make the decision. Many believed, with George Patton, that there was no point in trying to make it.

Plain G.I.s had their problems, too. Ever since they had come to Germany, the soldiers had fraternized -- not only with Frdulein but with a philosophy. Many now began to say that the Germans were really O.K., that they had been forced into the war, that the atrocity stories were fakes.

Familiarity with the eager German wom en, the fresh-faced German young, bred forgetfulness of Belsen and Buchenwald and Oswieczim. The bodies were buried; the memory was all but buried. Even at the trial of Belsen's "beast," Josef Kr#228;mer and his staff, the evoked horror was stale.

Tending more & more to accept the Germans, the Americans did not really impress the Germans. The plain truth was that Americans in Germany, as a group and as the representatives of a great power, were serving neither themselves nor America well.

Said one Russian officer last week, in galling but well-founded criticism: "You don't know what you want. Some of you even talk of getting out of Europe altogether. You may call us Asiatics but we live in Europe and can't leave. We know what we want and we are going to try to get it, and the Germans are used to leadership. If you don't give it to them, then they will follow ours, even if they don't like us. Then you'll get mad, but it will be your own fault."

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