Berlin Mob Excited Over Russian Officer’s Visit to German Girl

Grey River Argus, 2 October 1948, Page 5

Berlin Mob Excited Over Russian Officer’s Visit to German Girl

LONDON, Sept 30

United Slates military patrols were rushed to the southernmost part of the United States sector of Berlin to-day, following confused reports that Russian troops were firing into the area. They found one German had been shot, but the incident was not as bad as the earlier reports had suggested. The shooting occurred when a German crowd gathered outside a house where a Russian lieutenant was visiting a Gernvn girl. The lieutenant left the house and threatened the crowd with a rifle as he backed toward nearby woods. Two other Russians then came to the lieutenant’s assistance. The lieutenant fired three shots, hitting one German, as the American military police arrived. While a Russian tommy-gunner stood by with a finger on the trigger the lieutenant ~was approached by two Russian-speaking British newspapermen through whom he then apologised to an American colonel. ‘I am sorry it happened,” he said. “I would never shoot an American. I was just trying to scare the German mob. I don’t see why there should be s O . much excitement about one German girl.”