PARTISAN REVIEW
larly men who have families, acquire leather coats, suits, cameras,
motorcycles, or cars. I met one commanding officer who owned
thirty leather coats and as many pairs of boots. The wife of another
commander had more than fifty dresses made for her by a dress–
maker. Officers, singly and in groups, entered German factories and
traded vodka and cigarettes for all kinds of goods. Merchandise by
the truckload--sometimes it even filled freight cars- was sent home
to Russia by high-ranking officers. One general, when going home on
leave, loaded his acquisitions into three automobiles (Dodges, made
in America). I knew this man personally, and he was less rapacious
than many others.
The campaign against acquisitiveness was never too intense.
Repressive measures were applied only in glaringly criminal cases.
The political struggle against the profiteers was particularly difficult
because it was difficult to find a soldier who had not sinned. Once,
at a meeting of officers' wives, a general-chief of the unit's political
department- began to chide his audience for being infected with the
vice of junk collecting. There were cries of "How about your own
wife?" and the general sat down.
It should be noted that army wives are the carriers of "bourgeois
influence" into the Russian hinterland. The censors have intercepted
many letters from such women to their female friends, expressing
immoderate enthusiasm for German customs, German apartments
and their comforts, German clothing and furniture.
An
extensive
campaign has been waged against such letters.
As
soon as the army wives had become acclimated in Germany,
one could observe an emerging class antagonism between the generals'
wives, who travel in cars, spend hours with hairdressers and mani–
curists, etc., and the wives of junior officers, who live on the scant
army pay and must content themselves with crumbs from the tables
of the generals. This antagonism has penetrated into schools and
nurseries. In the closed circle of an occupation garrison, the differ–
ence in living standard between the generals' and junior officers'
children is conspicuous.
The reports the army receives from the homeland contribute
to the demoralization. At the end of the war, the soldiers were eager
to write letters to relatives and to receive replies. These communi–
cations from home-as well as letters from demobilized comrades-
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