We Assert! (November 1948)
[Der Weg 1948-11] An original translation of „Wir stellen fest!“
Title: We Assert! [de: Wir stellen fest!]
Author: Der Weg Editorial Team
“Der Weg” Issue: Year 02, Issue 11 (November 1948)
Page(s): 818-819
Dan Rouse’s Note(s):
Der Weg - El Sendero is a German and Spanish language magazine published by Dürer-Verlag in Buenos-Aires, Argentina by Germans with connections to the defeated Third Reich.
Der Weg ran monthly issues from 1947 to 1957, with official sanction from Juan Perón’s Government until his overthrow in September 1955.
Source Document(s):
[LINK] Scans of 1948 Der Weg Issues (archive.org)
We Assert!
DISMANTLING.
Halle on the Saale.
The Lindner Wagon and Trailer Factory in Ammendorf near Halle produces one hundred wagons monthly for the Russians on the "reparations account." The Mercedes Works in Zella-Mehlis, Thuringia, deliver typewriters worth 34 million marks each month to the Soviet Union, calculated at the 1938 peace prices. The "reparations service in fruit trees and berry bushes" was only recently discontinued by the Russians.
Dresden.
As reported by the London Daily Telegraph, the Russians are said to have transported art treasures worth over 42.5 million pounds sterling from the Zwinger Museum in Dresden to Moscow. Soon after their arrival, 1,695 of the most valuable paintings were presented to the Soviet Union by a Russian booty commission as a "gift" (?). Among the missing paintings are Correggio’s Holy Night, Raphael’s Sistine Madonna, 24 paintings by van Dyck, 6 by Palma Vecchio, 17 by Rembrandt, 17 by Rubens, 7 by Poussin, as well as a number of works by Tintoretto, Murillo, Ruisdael, Velázquez, Vermeer, Degas, van Gogh, Manet, and Renoir. Only paintings of lesser value were left behind, along with two significant works by Veronese, whose size made transport too difficult.
Berlin.
Several hundred German technicians, scientists, and artists have been exported to the USA and now serve as a lucrative dollar source for the JEIA, reports the Berliner Zeitung. A German technician who signs a contract for work in the USA with a weekly wage of 100 dollars receives only 20 dollars himself in the USA; the JEIA pockets the difference, while his family is paid a mere 240 marks.
Dortmund.
The "irregular" dismantling of the "Kolibri" comb factory in Schötmar, Westphalia, is being reversed because the intended British owner is alleged to have been a member of the confiscation commission. The company was neither on the reparations list in effect at the time nor had it previously received a confiscation notice.
Baden.
The French military government has forbidden the South Württemberg state parliament from discussing the dismantling and instructed the press in the French zone to treat the "dismantling" only favorably. "Long live the nation of the great nation!"
HUNGER.
Nuremberg.
A general weight loss of 10.7 kg in men and 6 kg in women was found in Nuremberg compared to October 1945.
Augsburg.
In the municipality of Diedorf, "the Party of Normal Consumers" was established for the first time in the local elections.
According to reports, it is said to be the only party that encompasses all Germans completely.
Hanover.
To document the incredibly catastrophic food situation in Hanover for future generations, the city council of Dinkelsbühl decided to preserve "a day’s food ration" along with the currently valid food stamps in the museum.
To the regret of all Germans, it is unfortunately not possible to preserve the responsible heads of the occupation government’s food offices in alcohol or at least to display their pictures alongside.
Freiburg in Breisgau.
Some particularly zealous municipal officials in Stockach had listed not only the hens but also all the roosters as "obligated to deliver eggs." They are trying to squeeze as much as possible out of the producers. Even the chickens are laughing!
Buenos Aires.
The prominent newspaper La Prensa once again brings, in an article from Genoa, the fable of human skin being processed in concentration camps into "lampshades and book bindings, and the production of Jewish human soap."
In the retrial initiated by US General Clay against Ilse Koch, who was originally "sentenced to death" and then "pardoned to life imprisonment," the baselessness of these accusations was established, and her sentence was reduced to four years.
It will still take some time before the minds distorted by hate and the modern tale-tellers put aside this fable, just as they did with the one about "chopped-off children’s hands" in the First World War.
Berlin.
"The solidarity of the victors in the face of the defeated enemy no longer exists," observes a reporter from the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, and to prove this, he presents excerpts from two articles in the Neue Zeitung (newspaper of the US Army) and the Tägliche Rundschau (newspaper of the Red Army) from the same day, the day of the German capitulation, in which it is stated: "What happened in the city could not remain hidden from the leadership. In all parts of the city, there were mass excesses. Some returned home after a few days, others after months; of the rest, nothing is known to this day."
And on the other side: "Within a few weeks, word had spread that it was better not to wear fur coats or gold watches when visiting the Renaissance Theater, because 'cowboys in pressed trousers' proved to be not only gallant cavaliers but also all too willing takers of these valuable items, with their only currency being drawn pistols." (The editorial team merely notes: "A small glimpse into the Reich capital Berlin, occupied by all four powers.")
Recklinghausen.
The city administration of Recklinghausen in Westphalia found it necessary to put a stop to the ever-increasing use of "feminine charms in municipal offices." A notice in front of the town hall informed the citizens of Recklinghausen that recently, female visitors to the town hall have taken to using the charms bestowed upon them by nature in their dealings with municipal officials. "Such unfair methods are warned against! They constitute bribery of officials and will be prosecuted!"
What would Eve say to that? We choose to see it as a good sign. The charms of the German woman seem not to have been lost despite all the misery, as they can still stir the ossified hearts of an unapproachable municipal bureaucracy in the dark offices of the Recklinghausen town hall and rouse them from their calm.
Or has the former mayor Bracht of Essen, which is not far away, risen again with his "1932 decree on gussets"?