A GLAD DAY IN BERLIN'
Weber, Guenther
'A Glad Day In Berlin' By GUENTHER WEBER THE BATTLE foi the mind nf Germany has led the communist authorities to make some aston ishing propaganda moves. There is, for example, the...
...A member ol the FDJ directorate of Berlin, for ex ample, prophesied that his legion...
...At the head of it is that famous leader of the Hitler Youth, Helmut Ilein...
...advertised on all athletic fields of the city A great sports festival is to fill the giant stadium, BerlinMitte, with 50,000 spectators...
...West Germans, however, are somewhat suspicious of all this circus publicity...
...These very "free" and very "youthful" East German young people have been trained in the use of small arms, machine guns, flame-throwers, ack-ack guns, tank rides and armored cars...
...It is char to the blindest that this i.s not to be a demonstration ol German unity...
...But the communist East-Zone satraps have been told to prepare for the happy excursion into Berlin of Gerhardt Eisler's Free German Youth...
...The prospectus of joys to come is something leally overpowering...
...According to figures secured by the "Opponents of Inhumanity" there were in December, not 29,000, but at least :i.r),()00 in the camps...
...would soon see to it that Berliners who do not fall in line with his organization will "croak...
...Berlin and Western Germany...
...That the benevolent Soviet authoi ities who have planned all these gay goings-on have in mind something more than parades and band music is suggested by various pronouncements made by their puppets...
...And this figure takes no account of the thousands who have been shipped into the Soviet Union in a steady stream...
...He is tinauthor of a leaflet which has been distributed by the million to inform the fortunate Germans of joys being prepared for them...
...Chicago and Hollywood...
...None have been liberated...
...And you can't announce the happy event without acknowledging the whole unhappy business in public...
...A central office for the campaign has been set up in Frankfurt...
...The show i.s advertised as the "inarch of German Youth on Berlin...
...But the people of Western Germany know well that the Soviet masters of the Eastern Zone have not changed their spots...
...It i.s, on the contrary a definite attempt of the Soviet imperialists to use disloyal Germans in an attempt to reduce the old fatherland to the status of a Russian satrapy...
...There is, for example, the announcement that prisoners are being released from the East German concentration camps...
...The official slogan for the whole project is "Deliver the death-blow to the imperialist warmonger center in Berlin...
...To induce the proper frame of mind, what better means than to give the impression that the Soviets are easy-going guardians and that the East Germans are really just a big and happy family...
...In the great city of Frankfurt, from which all this piled up publicity proceeds, only 300 youngsters have loined Hut Communist publicity needs little support by way of facts It is being stated that delegations of more than 500 young people will Stream to Berlin from cities all over the map...
...There are to be automobile races, motorcycle races, fireworks, plays, dancing...
...Their own papers, in fact, have proclaimed within the past few weeks that every enemy of Communist Germany will be ruthlessly destroyed...
...In September, 1919 there were 47,220 prisoners m the three largest concentration camps of East Germany...
...Its events are heralded as a combination of spring festival, circus and international sports competition...
...General Chuikov jogs Prime Minister Walter Ulbricht and this representative of Stalin lets it be known in Berlin, that thousands oi Germans are to be let out of the agreeable institutions in which they have been gently tutored and, it is hoped, transformed...
...From now on-happy people!—instead of being regarded as inmates of concentration camps, they are to he listed as prisoners being punished for serious crimes...
...Americans would be amused at one aspect of this affair which reproduces a sort of comedy which they have had a chance to observe in New York...
...The Berliner Zcitung spoke of 25,000 internees who were set at liberty...
...Three internationally famous spoi'tmen, Ulz.hoiiner, Bcttondorf and Max Lcichlcr were announced as sponsors...
...and Othman Walter...
...Perhaps they have decided to give up or modify then punitive policy But, at any rate, if they are liberating anyone at all at the present time, it is for the sake of starting a wave of friendly feeling...
...In Western Germany, to be sure, the Free German Youth make a lot of noise with a minimum of popular backing...
...This piece of hopped up news has not been broadcast without some embarrassment on the part of the German-Russian underlings...
...They have an army now They are prepared to take care of any threat to their power...
...There is to be a congress of youthful fighters for peace including delegates from 40 nations with hundreds of speakers and a parade of 500,000 persons...
...The names of a long list of distinguished Germans were published in connection with this announcement...
...In SachseAnhalt the Minister of the Interior Siewert, declared that German Communist youth must light just as heroically as the Red Army to liberate...
...IN THE MEANTIME, all the resources of Russia and of German communism have been set in motion to prepare the long-suffering Germans for a glad day in the month of May...
...So were the best German soccer players, Fritz...
...All the movie houses are to give perfomances for the young visitors free of charge...
...Performances are...
...The "Free German Youth," they know well, are actually the State Youth ot the Soviet Zone...
...You can't set people free from concentration camps unless you have such camps...
...With all this by way of warning, both the municipal authorities of West Berlin and the Allied commanders are issuing orders to prevent an armed invasion...
...But their only crime is that they lacked taste for the Communist Party...
...Some 10,500 are said to have the benefit of being considered members of a new category...
...The East Zone's Minister of the Interior let it be known that 15,038 had been turned loose in lots of 520...
...Thousands, of course, have died But there have been plenty of replacements foi these unfortunates If the Kremlin authorities now pittend to a generous and humane policy, Germans will not soon forget that during the five years of their regime at least 200,000 men, women and children have gone the woeful way through their torture institutions If they are now setting free a few of the survivors, it is no act of mercy...
...But these men and others —have announced as loudly and publicly as they can that they will have nothing to" do with this un-Germun affair...
...So, without precisely telling what the camps are like, the gladsome news is spread abroad...
Vol. 33 • April 1950 • No. 17
