Where Change Comes Slowly

Russia's steel curtain across Europe was scarcely more opaque than that with which the touchy French had enclosed their zone in Austria. But last week TIME Correspondent Alfred Kornfeld drove into the area, cabled:

As soon as my car came to a full stop on Innsbruck's famed Maria Theresien-strasse, a half dozen Tyroleans gathered around. A smartly dressed woman exclaimed: "Americans! It is good to see you back. We've missed your good coffee and candy and cigarets. . . ."

High Prosperity. These busy mountaineers had repaired their railroads, got their hydro-electric power output back to 94% of prewar capacity, the lumber industry to 72%, textiles to 65%, building bricks to 50%. Farmers had discovered that bomb craters were good spots to store manure. Said 68-year-old Anton Halmer: "I never had time to dig a hole deep enough until you fellows did the job for me in a couple of minutes." Inns-bruckers, whose official ration is 1,250 calories a day, looked well-fed and prosperous. Many a middle-class woman looked as though she had just stepped out of "Lanz of Salzburg's" Fifth Ave. window. Of 50 women on Innsbruck's main street, 38 were wearing solid leather ski boots, 41 multi-colored sweaters, 43 stockings as well as ski socks.

The same Tyrolean ultra-conservatism that Napoleon failed to break brought them out to cheer Otto and Robert Habsburg who drove through the country a few months ago in a Mercedes with the royal crown on the radiator. An Allied directive from Vienna last month expelled the pair. Hotel Owner Franz Huber mourned: "I shall always keep my finest suite ready."

High Policy. The Volkspartei, middle-of-the-road party which has attracted many a former Nazi, is strongest in the Tyrol. Next come the Social Democrats, including almost all non-Volksparteiler. The Communists, though not considered important, somehov,' managed to have better offices and a better organizational setup than their stronger opponents. The biggest thorn in the Tyrolean toe is the force that shapes their lives, the French occupation troops. They have requisitioned the finest houses, the fastest cars, the most luxurious hotels. Once 35,000 strong, they reduced their total to 10,000, but helped make up the difference by bringing in their wives and children.

The first objective of the French is denazification. Colonel Robert Andrieux, director of the Sûreté, pointed to the French record of clearing out suspected Nazi sympathizers. He had fired 58 of 147 lawyers, 134 of 356 judges, 1,361 of 2,300 police officials. Andrieux summed it up: "If a man was a party member before Anschluss, he's out."

Equally important is the French drive to divorce Austrians from their German cousins. Over & over again the French tell them: "Whatever you produce we will buy or Italy will buy or England will buy. You need not depend on Germany. Reorient yourself from the north towards the south and west. Be independent of Germany and stay out of trouble."