From the Stars and Stripes archives
Conant pays call on Hessian state capital, leaders
WIESBADEN — One hundred seventy years have given strange twists to American-Hessian relations, according to U.S. High Commissioner James B. Conant.
He paid his first official visit today to the Hesse state government here, where he was met by Hesse Minister-President Georg A. Zinn and other Hessian officials.
Conant recalled that Hessians went to America with somewhat unfriendly feelings during the Revolution when they served as mercenaries for George III, but that many later stayed to build new homes and new futures in the States.
In the recent war years, Americans came as enemies, but they have reversed their role from that of occupiers'to that of defenders, the High Commissioner pointed out.
Zinn expressed thinks for "generous" U.S. aid after the war and said. there was perhaps no other German state where German and American authorities had so successfully endeavored to reach such a high state of cooperation. This afternoon Conant met with members of the German press at the America House, with Leonard Lewis, Wiesbaden America House director, acting as host.
In Conant's party were B. B. Snyder; Frankfurt consul, Montagu Pigott, consul-general in Frankfurt; and Alfred. V. Boerner, director of the HICOG office of public affairs.
