Ferguson: According to ability
By Mrs. Walter Ferguson
…
Background of news –
The Secretary of Labor
By Bertram Benedict
President Roosevelt, in his speech to the Teamsters Union tonight, may have some comment on Governor Dewey’s promise, if elected President, to appoint a bona-fide trade unionist to the Secretary of Labor in his Cabinet.
The Department of Labor was set up in 1913, by an act dividing the Department of Commerce and Labor which had been established in 1903. When the 1913 act was passed, the Republicans were in control of the Senate, the Democrats of the House.
In 1913, the American Federation of Labor had a membership of less than two million, and even with the independent unions such as the railroad brotherhoods, most wage-earners were outside of the unions. It might have seemed unfitting to appoint as Secretary of Labor, to represent all workers, a union official; today, with the unions claiming a total membership of around 15 million, Governor Dewey’s proposal of a union leader as Secretary of Labor seems not unfitting.
For the first Secretary of Labor, President Wilson appointed William B. Wilson of Pennsylvania, born in Scotland. Mr. Wilson had been secretary-treasurer of the United Mine Workers, but had been elected to Congress in 1906, and at the time of his appointment was chairman of the House Labor Committee.
Davis second to hold job
President Harding appointed as the second Secretary of Labor James J. Davis, also from Pennsylvania and also foreign-born (in Wales). Mr. Davis had been an iron puddler for a time in Ellwood, Indiana (Wendell L. Willkie’s hometown), but since 1906 had been director general of the Loyal Order of Moose. So, like Mr. Wilson, he was a former union official who had later become distinguished in other fields.
It seems substantiated that after the 1924 election, President Coolidge offered the position to John L. Lewis, who, as an enrolled Republican, had worked valiantly for the Republican ticket. However, Mr. Coolidge – and President Hoover following him – reappointed Mr. Davis.
Mr. Davis retired in December 1930 after he had been elected Senator from Pennsylvania (his seat is being contested again this year). President Hoover then appointed an out-and-out union man, but one outside of the AFL – William N. Doak, legislative representative of the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen.
Miss Perkins, whom President Roosevelt appointed in 1933, was non-unionist, but her work as New York State Industrial Commissioner had received the approbation of the unions.
Secretaries of Commerce
As the Secretary of Labor is supposed to work for the interests of labor, and the Secretary of Agriculture for farmers’ interests, the Secretary of Commerce is supposed to work for the interests of business.
When Woodrow Wilson appointed William B. Wilson as Secretary of Labor in 1913, he appointed another member of Congress, William C. Redfield, Secretary of Commerce. Mr. Redfield was a New York iron manufacturer. But as Commissioner of Public Works in Brooklyn, he had had spats with public utility corporations and moreover had agitated for a lower tariff, so that some conservative business interests considered him not quite “kosher.” He was succeeded in 1919 by Missouri Rep. J. W. Alexander, a lawyer.
Herbert Hoover, long identified with mining activities abroad, served as Secretary of Commerce under Presidents Harding and Coolidge. He appointed in 1929 Robert P. Lamont, a Chicago manufacturer, succeeded in 1932 by Roy D. Chapin, a Detroit auto man.
President Roosevelt’s first Secretary of Commerce was Daniel C. Roper, a lawyer who had been Internal Revenue Commissioner under Mr. Wilson. His successor in 1939, Harry L. Hopkins, was also no businessman. The present Secretary of Commerce, Jesse H. Jones, is an outstanding banker.
Poll: People think war will end in three months
Optimism spurts throughout U.S.
By George Gallup, Director, American Institute of Public Opinion
…
Brundige: Arsenic, Old Lace delirious farce
Grand plays nephew of lethal ‘Old Dears’ in Stanley film
By Lenore Brundige
…
Millett: Men live their own lives but ‘women are meddlers’
Concentration on own affairs seems to be feminine problem
By Ruth Millett
…
Stokes: Dewey in filmland
By Thomas L. Stokes
Los Angeles, California –
Here is the City of Miracles. Here is the City of the Angels – the lost angels with broken wings and tarnished souls who used to flash across the sky like a flaming bird of paradise, trailing expensive perfume.
Here is the city where the girl who once stood behind the 10-cent store counter, the girl who handed out the hash in Pete’s restaurant, soars to fame and glory, learns how to speak English with a sultry British accent, how to throw a mink coat nonchalantly across her shoulders, how to order about a butler and a covey of maids and a whole battalion of publicity men – all of whom, behind her back, snarl: “That lousy–!”
This is the city of hard-faced women, beautifully dressed, tough of heart. This is the city of slick men on the make. This is the city that lives for a gag and celebrates a new publicity coup as no civilization ever celebrated a major poet.
WPA remembered
This is the city that is up today, was down yesterday. and is afraid it may go broke tomorrow.
This is the city where only yesterday – less than 10 years ago, there were 10,000 women on WPA sewing projects, and as many men on garden projects. They were men and women with soft hands, for they had worked in nicely paneled offices where promoters were promoting. The depression put a sudden stop to all that. One-third of the city’s population was on relief. Yet, out at Santa Anita then, somebody was betting $65,000 a race.
And there was misery among the old folks. Their investments no longer paid dividends, the remittances from the children to whom they left their farms back in the Midwest stopped, for the sons and daughters were caught, too. in the national disaster. Hopefully the old folks marched into old Doc Townsend’s sideshow, for the promise of $200 every month. They got the Townsend habit then. On the California ballot for a referendum vote in the coming election is a proposal for $60 for every person 60 and over – 60 at 60.
All of this, and it is somehow sad to contemplate, is perhaps America – America in miniature.
It all seemed a bit too much for Governor Thomas E. Dewey, though there’s a touch of Hollywood in him.
Dewey ‘the actor’
No suave actor who walks on the stage in one of those dinner-dress English drawing-room comedies ever looked more the part than did he when he strolled down the aisle of a hotel conference room for his daily press conference. He seemed to catch the spirit.
“What is this – Hollywood?” he asked.
Just then, there was a stir at the back, and down the aisle, in a wheelchair, they pushed Lionel Barrymore through the crowd to talk to the candidate. Mr. Barrymore being head of the Hollywood-for-Dewey Committee. That took more time, more picture-taking.
At last, the session could begin. There was a raw edge in the Governor’s voice, when he said: “Have we sobered down to the proportions of a press conference?”
At one time, a Canadian newspaperman jumped up with a question, explaining that he happened to be in town and wanted to take this opportunity to meet the Governor.
“Is there anybody here from China?” the Governor retorted.
And at night, the Republican candidate went out to that monster Coliseum. Ginger Rogers introduced Governor Warren of California, who introduced Governor Dewey.
The Governor rose to the occasion.
He came out for an expansion of the social security program that nearly matches that of the New Deal and also appropriated some features of the CIO program, critical as some other Republicans are being just now about the CIO.
Old Doc Townsend must look to his laurels.
My four years in Hitler’s gray Paree –
Maze of rules made civilian life difficult
Written for the Pittsburgh Press
…
1 Like
A super-super-colossal show –
Hollywood goes all-out at colorful Dewey rally
Flags, bands, cowboys and film stars galore all cavort under technicolored heavens
By Fred Othman, United Press staff writer
Los Angeles Coliseum, Los Angeles, California –
Cecil B. DeMille made a Hollywood production out of the Dewey-for-President rally last night with Indians, live elephants, brass bands, cowboy riders, technicolored heavens – everything but solid marble bathtubs.
The mighty DeMille, who functions as a Republican leader when he is not producing epics, erected an American flag 40 feet tall in back of the stand from which Governor Thomas E. Dewey made his speech, and brought on the elephants.
He only had two pachyderms but he brought them on with a 50-piece band led by a sweater girl in white boots – and not much else.
A colorful scene
While the band marched down the center of the vast stadium, the elephants plodded down the right, and the Indians tramped down the left. DeMille sat in the drivers’ seat and sprayed them all with a million watts in red, white and blue.
He brought on three ministers – a Catholic, an Episcopalian and a rabbi – to lead the prayers, sent Leo Carrillo and assistants galloping the greensward with American flags in their hands, and filtered into the press boxes – to the delight of visiting reporters – such Republicans as Binnie Barnes, Lillian Gish, Virginia Bruce, Ilona Massey, Constance Moore, Ann Sothern, Barbara Stanwyck, Claire Trevor, and many another equally beautiful.
Carrillo rides horse
Carrillo enlivened proceedings by galloping around the stadium on a white horse with a collar made of electric light. With every thump of the horse’s hoofs, Carrillo let her rip with both his trusty six-shooters, while the crowd cheered.
Then came the “Star-Spangled Banner” by the band and a chorus, but without Jeanette MacDonald, who took down with swollen tonsils at the last moment.
After the national anthem, DeMille brought on a Wild West rodeo, led by such favorites of the juvenile audience as Bill Elliott and Monty Montana, who chased the imaginary Indians all over the football field and then obliged with some fancy riding and rope tricks.
Ginger Rogers in fox coat
Richard Dix and Lee Tracy brought their wives to the reporters’ table and asked please could they sit down.
Ginger Rogers arrived in a silver fox coat that made the other feminine Republicans gasp while DeMille brought on Victor “Congressman Throttlebottom” Moore and Bill Gaxton to reenact a skit from their memorable stage success, “Of Thee I Sing.”
By now the stadium was more than three quarters filled, and the audience was having such a good time it didn’t much care whether it had any political speeches or not.
‘All for Dewey’
DeMille and his announcer, Harry Vonzell, sobered the customers momentarily with a brief speech by a Negro attorney, a California farmer and a laboring man, all of whom brought cheers with their predictions that Dewey would be the next President.
Then came Warren Pinney, president of “Democrats for Dewey,” who brought on boos and hisses when he mentioned the New Deal. Next came a plump and handsome housewife, Mrs. Hannah Gustafson, who said the election of Governor Dewey was her only hope of getting her three sons back soon from overseas.
Eddie Bracken brought in a plug for his newest picture when he told the assemblage that the nation would hail its conquering hero, Dewey, in November. David O. Selznick, the producer, said he could see no chance of Governor Dewey losing.
Governor Dewey and his wife rolled into the arena in a cream-colored touring car on which DeMille focused all of his 50 spotlights. The car rolled slowly around the track twice while the crowd cheered and actresses Ruth Hussey and Francis Dee walked down the steps to meet the guests of honor with twin armloads of roses.
Mrs. Dewey wore a purple suit and a fur neckpiece; her husband was clad in a wide smile and a single-breasted gray suit.
They sat down and waited while such Republicans as Patsy Ruth Miller, Bill Bendix, George Brent, Walt Disney, Adolph Menjou, Randolph Scott and Harold Lloyd made two sentence speeches, urging Governor Dewey’s election.
“I am about to see a very tired President go and a very vigorous one come in,” shouted “Throttlebottom” Moore for perhaps the biggest preliminary cheer of the evening.
Address by President Roosevelt
September 23, 1944, 9:30 p.m. EWT
Delivered before the AFL International Teamsters Union, Washington, DC
Broadcast audio:
I am actually four years older – which seems to annoy some people. In fact, millions of us are more than eleven years older than when we started in to clear up the mess that was dumped in our laps in 1933. We all know certain people will make it a practice to depreciate the accomplishments of labor – who even attack labor as unpatriotic.
They keep this up usually for three years and six months. But then, for some strange reason, they change their tune – every four years – just before Election Day.
When votes are at stake, they suddenly discover that they really love labor, and are eager to protect it from its old friends.
I got quite a laugh, for example – and I am sure that you did – when I read this plank in the Republican platform adopted at their national convention in Chicago last July:
The Republican Party accepts the purposes of the National Labor Relations Act, the Wage and Hour Act, the Social Security Act, and all other federal statutes designed to promote and protect the welfare of American working men and women, and we promise a fair and just administration of these laws.
Many of the Republican leaders and Congressmen and candidates, who shouted enthusiastic approval of that plank in that convention hall, would not even recognize these progressive laws if they met them in broad daylight.
Indeed, they have personally spent years of effort and energy – and much money – in fighting every one of those laws in the Congress, in the press and in the courts, ever since this administration began to advocate them and enact them into legislation.
That is a fair example of their insincerity and their inconsistency.
The whole purpose of Republican oratory these days seems to be to switch labels. The object is to persuade the American people that the Democratic Party was responsible for the 1929 crash and depression, and the Republican Party was responsible for all social progress under the New Deal.
Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery – but I am afraid that in this case it is the most obvious common or garden variety of fraud.
There are enlightened, liberal elements in the Republican Party, and they have fought hard and honorably to bring the party up to date and to get it in step with the forward march of American progress. But these liberal elements were not able to drive the old guard Republicans from their entrenched positions.
Can the old guard pass itself off as the New Deal? I think not.
We have all seen many marvelous stunts in the circus, but no performing elephant could turn a handspring without falling flat on his back.
I need not recount to you the centuries of history which have been crowded into these four years since I saw you last.
There were some – in the Congress and out – who raised their voices against our preparations for defense – before and after 1939 – as hysterical warmongering, who cried out against our help to the Allies as provocative and dangerous.
We remember the voices.
They would like to have us forget them now. But in 1940 and 1941 they were loud voices. Happily, they were a minority and – fortunately for ourselves, and for the world – they could not stop America.
There are some politicians who kept their heads buried deep in the sand while the storms of Europe and Asia were headed our way, who said that the Lend-Lease Bill “would bring an end to free government in the United States,” and who said “only hysteria entertains the idea that Germany, Italy or Japan contemplate war upon us.”
These very men are now asking the American people to entrust to them the conduct of our foreign policy and our military policy.
What the Republican leaders are now saying in effect is this:
Oh, just forget what we used to say, we have changed our minds now – we have been reading the public opinion polls about these things, and we now know what the American people want. Don’t leave the task of making the peace to those old men who first urged it, and who have already laid the foundations for it, and who have had to fight all of us, inch by inch, during the last five years to do it – just turn it all over to us. We’ll do it so skillfully – that we won’t lose a single isolationist vote or a single isolationist campaign contribution.
There is one thing I am too old for – I cannot talk out of both sides of my mouth at the same time.
This government welcomes all sincere supporters of the cause of effective world collaboration in the making of a lasting peace. Millions of Republicans all over the nation are with us – and have been with us – in our unshakeable determination to build the solid structure of peace. And they, too, will resent this campaign talk by those who first woke up to the facts of international life a few short months ago –when they began to study the polls of public opinion.
Those who today have the military responsibility for waging this war in all parts of the globe are not helped by the statements of men who, without responsibility and without knowledge of the facts, lecture the chiefs of staff of the United States as to the best means of dividing our armed forces and our military resources between the Atlantic and Pacific, between the Army and the Navy, and among the commanding generals of the different theatres of war.
When I addressed you four years ago, I said:
I know that America will never be disappointed in its expectation that labor will always continue to do its share of the job we now face, and do it patriotically and effectively and unselfishly.
Today we know that America has not been disappointed. In his order of the day, when the Allied armies first landed in Normandy, Gen. Eisenhower said: “Our home fronts have given us overwhelming superiority in weapons and munitions of war.”
I know that there are those labor baiters among the opposition who, instead of calling attention to the achievements of labor in this war, prefer the occasional strikes which have occurred – strikes which have been condemned by every responsible national labor leader – every national leader except one. And that one labor leader, incidentally, is certainly not among my supporters.
Labor baiters forget that, at our peak, American labor and management have turned out airplanes at the rate of 109,000 per year; tanks, 57,000 per year; combat vessels, 573 per year; landing vessels, 31,000 per year; cargo ships, 19 million tons per year, and small arms ammunition, 23 billion rounds per year.
But a strike is news, and generally appears in shrieking headlines – and, of course, they say labor is always to blame. The fact is that, since Pearl Harbor, only one-tenth of one percent of man-hours have been lost by strikes. But even those candidates who burst out in election-year affection for social legislation and for labor in general still think you ought to be good boys and stay out of politics.
And, above all, they hate to see any working man or woman contribute a dollar bill to any wicked political party.
Of course, it is all right for large financiers and industrialists and monopolists to contribute tens of thousands of dollars – but their solicitude for that dollar which the men and women in the ranks of labor contribute is always very touching.
They are, of course, perfectly willing to let you vote – unless you happen to be a soldier or sailor overseas, or a merchant seaman carrying munitions of war. In that case they have made it pretty hard for you to vote – for there are some political candidates who think they may have a chance if only the total vote is small enough.
And while I am on the subject of voting let me urge every American citizen – man and woman – to use your sacred privilege of voting, no matter which candidate you expect to support. Our millions of soldiers and sailors and merchant seamen have been handicapped or prevented from voting by those politicians and candidates who think they stand to lose by such votes. You here at home have the freedom of the ballot. Irrespective of party, you should register and vote this November. That is a matter of good citizenship.
Words come easily, but they do not change the record. You are old enough to remember what things were like for labor in 1932.
You remember the closed banks and the breadlines and the starvation wages; the foreclosures of homes and farms, and the bankruptcies of business; the “Hoovervilles,” and the young men and women of the nation facing a hopeless, jobless future; the closed factories and mines and mills; the ruined and abandoned farms; the stalled railroads and the empty docks; the blank despair of a whole nation – and the utter impotence of our federal government.
You remember the long, hard road, with its gains and its setbacks, which we have traveled together since those days.
Now there are some politicians, of course, who do not remember that far back, and some who remember but find it convenient to forget. But the record is not to be washed away that easily.
The opposition has already imported into this campaign the propaganda technique invented by the dictators abroad. The technique was all set out in Hitler’s book – and it was copied by the aggressors of Italy and Japan.
According to that technique, you should never use a small falsehood; always a big one, for its very fantastic nature will make it more credible – if only you keep repeating it over and over again.
For example, although I rubbed my eyes when I read it, we have been told that it was not a Republican depression, but a Democratic depression from which this nation has been saved – that this administration is responsible for all the suffering and misery that the history books and the American people always thought had been brought about during the twelve ill-fated years when the Republican Party was in power.
Now, there is an old and somewhat lugubrious adage which says: “Never speak of rope in the house of one who has been hanged.”
In the same way, if I were a Republican leader speaking to a mixed audience, the last word in the whole dictionary that I think I would use is that word “depression.”
For another example, I learned – much to my amazement – that the policy of this administration was to keep men in the Army when the war was over, because there might be no jobs for them in civil life.
Why, the very day that this fantastic charge was first made a formal plan for the method of speedy discharge from the Army had already been announced by the War Department – a plan based upon the wishes of the soldiers themselves.
This callous and brazen falsehood about demobilization was an effort to stimulate fear among American mothers, wives and sweethearts. And, incidentally, it was hardly calculated to bolster the morale of our soldiers and sailors and airmen fighting our battles all over the world.
Perhaps the most ridiculous of these campaign falsifications is the one that this administration failed to prepare for the war which was coming. I doubt whether even Goebbels would have tried that one. For even he would never have dared hope that the voters of America had already forgotten that many of the Republican leaders in the Congress and outside the Congress tried to thwart and block nearly every attempt which this administration made to warn our people and to arm this nation. Some of them called our 50,000-airplane program fantastic.
Many of those very same leaders who fought every defense measure we proposed are still in control of the Republican Party, were in control of its national convention in Chicago, and would be in control of the machinery of the Congress and the Republican Party in the event of a Republican victory this fall.
These Republican leaders have not been content with attacks upon me, or my wife, or my sons – they now include my little dog, Fala. Unlike the members of my family, he resents this. Being a Scottie, as soon as he learned that the Republican fiction writers had concocted a story that I had left him behind on an Aleutian island and had sent a destroyer back to find him – at a cost to the taxpayers of two or three or twenty million dollars – his Scotch soul was furious. He has not been the same dog since.
I am accustomed to hearing malicious falsehoods about myself – such as that old, worm-eaten chestnut that I have represented myself as indispensable. But I think I have a right to object to libelous statements about my dog.
But we all recognize the old technique. The people of this country know the past too well to be deceived into forgetting. Too much is at stake to forget. There are tasks ahead of us which we must now complete with the same will and skill and intelligence and devotion which have already led us so far on the road to victory.
There is the task of finishing victoriously this most terrible of all wars as speedily as possible and with the least cost in lives.
There is the task of setting up international machinery to assure that the peace, once established, will not again be broken.
And there is the task which we face here at home – the task of reconverting our economy from the purposes of war to the purposes of peace.
These peace-building tasks were faced once before, nearly a generation ago. They were botched by a Republican administration. That must not happen this time. We will not let it happen this time.
Fortunately, we do not begin from scratch. Much has been done. Much more is under way. The fruits of victory this time will not be apples to be sold on street corners.
Many months ago, this administration set up the necessary machinery for an orderly peacetime demobilization. The Congress has now passed legislation continuing the agencies needed for demobilization – with additional powers to carry out their functions.
I know that the American people – business and labor and agriculture – have the same will to do for peace what they have done for war. And I know that they can sustain a national income which will assure full production and full employment under our democratic system of private enterprise, with government encouragement and aid whenever and wherever it is necessary.
The keynote of all that we propose to do in reconversion can be found in the one word: “jobs.”
We shall lease or dispose of our government-owned plants and facilities and our surplus war property and land on the basis of how they can best be operated by private enterprise to give jobs to the greatest number.
We shall follow a wage policy which will sustain the purchasing power of labor – for that means more production and more jobs.
The present policies on wages and prices were conceived to serve the needs of the great masses of the people. They stopped inflation. They kept prices on a stable level. Through the demobilization period, policies will be carried out with the same objective in mind – to serve the needs of the great masses of the people.
This is not the time in which men can be forgotten as they were in the Republican catastrophe which we inherited. The returning soldiers, the workers by their machines, the farmers in the field, the miners, the men and women in offices and shops, do not intend to be forgotten.
They know they are not surplus. Because they know that they are America.
We must set targets and objectives for the future which will seem impossible to those who live in and are weighted down by the dead past.
We are even now organizing the logistics of the peace just as Marshall, King, Arnold, MacArthur, Eisenhower and Nimitz are organizing the logistics of this war.
The victory of the American people and their allies in this war will be far more than a victory against fascism and reaction and the dead hand of despotism and of the past.
The victory of the American people and their allies in this war will be a victory for democracy. It will constitute such an affirmation of the strength and power and vitality of government by the people as history has never before witnessed.
With that affirmation of the vitality of democratic government behind us, that demonstration of its resilience and its capacity for decision and for action – with that knowledge of our own strength and power – we move forward with God’s help to the greatest epoch of free achievement by free men the world has ever known or imagined possible.
1 Like
Völkischer Beobachter (September 24, 1944)
‚Politiker‘ ohne Trümpfe
Die Völkertragödie im Norden und Südosten rollt zwangsläufig ab
…
Rosenberg: Der Bolschewismus und die Volkstümer
Von Alfred Rosenberg
Vor einigen Tagen erhielt ich einen Brief, worin darauf hingewiesen war, daß die Nationalsozialistische Partei im Laufe ihrer Kampfzeit den Bolschewismus gleichsam als das heraufsteigende Untermenschentum bezeichnet habe. Nun hätte man Gelegenheit gehabt, die Völker des Ostens bei der Arbeit in Deutschland zu beobachten, und hatte festgestellt, daß sie unter einer zweckentsprechenden Führung sowohl arbeitswillig seien als auch in den Ergebnissen Zufriedenstellendes leisteten. Ob diese beiden Tatsachen nicht einen Widerspruch darstellten und ob sich die Nationalsozialistische Partei in der Beurteilung des Bolschewismus nicht geirrt hätte? Da ich annehmen kann, daß diese Fragen vielleicht viele Volksgenossen beschäftigen, erscheint es mir notwendig, sie zu beantworten.
Im Bolschewismus haben wir es zunächst scheinbar nur mit einem ganz bestimmten weltanschaulichen und sozialpolitischen Programm zu tun, das – vollständig konsequent gesehen – auf Marx zurückgeht, dann von zahllosen jüdischen und sonstigen Agitatoren ausgebaut wurde und im kommunistischen Moskau zur politisch-militärischen Herrschaft gelangt ist. Es besteht kein Zweifel, daß sich nahezu jede These gegen Wurzel und Volkstumsüberlieferung einer jeden europäischen Nation richtet. Alles, was den Völkern aus ihrer Geschichte und ihrem Wesen heraus wert und verehrungswürdig sein mußte, ist von den marxistischen Parteien manchesmal demokratisch verschleiert, dann aber in bolschewistischer Form mit brutaler Offenheit angegriffen und bespien worden, Die Voraussetzung für eine solche Wirksamkeit war, daß manche Staatsformen überlebt schienen und große Menschenmassen in allen Völkern durch das Entstehen von Riesenstädten vielfach die Verbindung mit dem Wurzelboden ihrer Kultur verlören hatten.
Der stets eine Krankheit oder Schwäche witternde jüdische Instinkt der marxistischen Führerschaft hat hier alle Leidenschaften aufzupeitschen sich bemüht und die vorhandene Abneigung gegen bestimmte Formen der Vergangenheit zu einem grundsätzlichen Haß gegen alles Gewesene gewandelt.
Diese Einheit im Kampf gegen den Zarismus zerfiel gleich nach dem Sieg. Es ist dabei durchaus zu unterstreichen, daß der Ruf der Bauern nach „Freiheit und Land“ ursprünglich nicht eine bolschewistische Parole war, sondern die Parole der Sozialrevolutionäre, die ja nach der Wahl 1917 zur stärksten Partei wurden. Inmitten dieser auseinanderlaufenden Willensmeinungen entschied dann der Bolschewismus durch die Übernahme aller vorher zündenden Parolen und durch die alles versprechende Losung für die zurückströmenden Soldaten: die Arbeiter- und Soldatendiktatur.
Die Herrschaft in den großen Industriestädten sicherte das Übergewicht über die widerstrebenden bäuerlichen Gegenden, und es besteht gar kein Zweifel, daß die bolschewistische Bewegung genauso zu wirken begann, wie sie es in Ungarn monatelang tun konnte. Es steht ebenfalls außer Zweifel, daß hier im Laufe der Zeit Dutzende von Millionen verschleppt oder ermordet, daß die der Staatsanschauung des Bolschewismus abgeneigten Bauern ausgerottet oder deportiert wurden und daß der Bolschewismus von Moskau aus genau die gleichen kulturzerstörenden Versuche machte, die er in Deutschland auch durch die KPD proklamiert hat.
Wenn nunmehr nach 25 Jahren Diktatur der Bolschewismus sich in vielen Dingen trotz alledem nicht überall im Leben durchsetzen konnte, so ist das eben der Zähigkeit und Leidensfähigkeit der Volkstümer des Ostens zu verdanken und nicht etwa seinem eigenen Wesen.
Wenn er zum Beispiel früher die Ehe an sich zerstören und das ganze Volk unter kollektivistische Erziehung bringen wollte, so hat er im Laufe der Zeit davon Abstand nehmen müssen, weil eben das primitivste Lebens- und Heimatgefühl einfach nicht auszurotten gewesen ist. Wenn wir die entartete Kunst, die wir, vom Bolschewismus dauernd unterstützt, in Deutschland fanden, in Rußland jetzt nicht antrafen, sondern ganz im Gegenteil sogar die Furcht vor Darstellung des nackten Körpers in Skulpturen, so ist das ebenfalls nicht etwa eine Seite der bolschewistischen Kunstauffassung gewesen, sondern die Durchsetzung des traditionell kirchlich bedingten Empfindens der verschiedenen Volker des Ostens. Diese und andere Zeugnisse zeigten zum Teil überhaupt keinen Versuch einer Revolutionierung in der Kunst, sondern offenbarten geradezu einen spießbürgerlichen Charakter, wie er in Europa etwa bis zur Wende des 20. Jahrhunderts in der kleinbürgerlichen Umwelt zu Hause war.
Wie wir schon vor über 20 Jahren feststellten, ist das, was Marx lehrte, im Wesentlichen nicht eine wirtschaftliche Lehre unter anderen gewesen, sondern eine politisch-rassische Kampfansage gegen das Wesen der europäischen Völker überhaupt. Bei einer Prüfung im Einzelnen erinnern wir uns alle noch an jene Programmpunkte des radikalen Marxismus, der im Deutschen Reichstag und in der jüdisch-bolschewistischen Presse vertreten wurde, und schließlich sind dem unmittelbaren bolschewistischen Ausbruche in der Münchener Räterepublik und in Ungarn doch noch so frisch in Erinnerung, daß sich auch weniger Begabte dieser Dinge noch erinnern müßten.
In beiden Fällen handelte es sich um eine von Juden geführte Unterwelterscheinung, Existenzen, die kaum sonst ein deutsches Auge gesehen hatte, kamen aus den Tiefen der Spelunken und Verbrecherviertel auf die Straßen und bildeten die eigentliche sogenannte erste Rote Garde der bolschewistischen Revolte. Wenn heute in Deutschland noch Fragen entstehen, wie obengenannte, dann müssen sich diese harmlosen Zeitgenossen nur vorstellen, die Münchener Räterepublik und die ungarische Räterepublik hätten tatsächlich gesiegt. Was dann aus dem Deutschen Reich geworden wäre, kann man sich ohne viel Phantasie ausmalen: die biologische Vernichtung aller wirklich kulturtragenden Schichten, die Vernichtung des aktiven, damals jungen Soldatentums, die Terrorherrschaft der Minderwertigsten und die Terrorisierung von Millionen und Millionen, die, unbewaffnet, unfähig gewesen wären, den bewaffneten Bolschewisten Widerstand zu leisten.
Es ist ein Irrtum, wenn man glauben sollte, in dem ehemaligen Rußland sei es anders gewesen. Wir haben bei Betrachtung dieser Entwicklung stets zweierlei Gruppen unterschieden: jene, die aus untermenschlichen oder primitivsten Empfindungen die bolschewistische Auffassung auch klassenkämpferisch bejahten, und die aus der sozialen Verzweiflung heraus Irregeführten, welche sich vielleicht sogar aus phantastisch-idealistischen Motiven der gar nicht verstandenen kommunistischen Bewegung zur Verfügung stellten – und dann die eigentlichen Volkstümer, über die der Bolschewismus entweder zur Herrschaft gelangte oder sich jedenfalls bemühte, zur Herrschaft zu kommen.
Das angefressene und durch Korruption und Krieg zermürbte Zarentum brach unter der Macht dieser Strömungen zusammen. Demokratisches Europäertum wollte die zaristische Diktatur in europäische Formen gebracht wissen, die soziale Bewegung (vertreten durch die Sozialrevolutionäre, die Menschewiken und die Bolschewiken) brachte die Empörung vieler enterbter Proletarier zum Ausbruch, die Losung der Bauern nach Freiheit und Land wurde zur stärksten antreibenden Kraft. Zu allen diesen Mächten gesellten sich dann die nationalistischen Bestrebungen aller jener Völker, die durch den angerosteten Zarenreif noch zusammengehalten worden waren, jetzt aber sich mit allen feindlichen Gruppen verbanden.
Der Bolschewismus war in den Industriestädten zur Herrschaft gelangt, und die Industrialisierung und Technisierung wurde zum Hauptkampfruf des kommunistischen Staates, einerseits, um das doch nicht ganz auszurottende bäuerliche Empfinden durch Landabwanderung in die neu zu errichtenden Industriezentren zu schwächen und damit das Bewusstsein der Kraft des Proletariats zu erhöhen, anderseits, um neben der bolschewistischen Zersetzung innerhalb der europäischen Staaten sich auch für einen kommenden militärischen Überfall auf Europa zu rüsten.
Die Einführung des Traktors in die Landwirtschaft ist deshalb für den Bolschewismus nicht etwa eine Maßnahme zur Hebung der landwirtschaftlichen Erzeugnisse gewesen, sondern eine politisch-militärische Maßnahme. Durch die Herabsetzung des Pferdebestandes wurden die Bauern oder, besser gesagt, die Kolchosarbeiter politisch-sozial abhängig gemacht vom Traktor, und anderseits lernten nun Zehntausende auf diese Weise mit dem Motor umzugehen als Vorbereitung, einen Kampfwagen zu führen.
Daß diese Technisierung eine ungeheure Gefahr bedeutete, habe ich schon in vielen Aufsätzen etwa in den Jahren 1920 bis 1925 dargelegt. Der Bolschewismus, ausgestattet mit aller Staatsmacht, holte sich qualifizierte und von ihm gut bezahlte Ingenieure und Erfinder aus allen europäischen Staaten, sah ihnen ihre Leistungen ab und bemühte sich, sie durch Heranziehung russischer Techniker und Arbeiter nachzuahmen. Neben allen Ausrottungsmaßnahmen und seiner ganzen inneren Kulturfeindschaft hat der Bolschewismus zweifellos auf diesem Gebiete die Neugier nach der modernen Technik in den bisher primitiveren Volkstümern geweckt und tatsächlich einen Eifer entwickelt, der nicht ohne weiteres zu erwarten gewesen ist, aber seine Erklärung eben unter anderem auch in dieser Neugier fand, die dann bei Errichtung des einen oder anderen Werkes geschmeichelt wurde, als ob es sich bei diesem oder jenem Werk um ein nie gesehenes Weltwunder originellster Erfindung des bolschewistischen Regimes handelte.
Da die Sowjetunion nahezu hermetisch von der anderen Welt abgeschlossen war, hat diese Spekulation auch auf altrussische messianische Instinkte ihre Wirkung nicht verfehlt. Als dann schließlich das Jahr 1941 anbrach und die Sowjetpanzer sich zu aber Tausenden an den deutschen Demarkationslinien sammelten, da hat die rote Diktatur die Volkstümer unter härtestem Befehl in den Kampf geschickt, und der russische Soldat, seit Jahrhunderten zu leiden gewohnt, hat trotz bäuerlicher Abneigung gegen den Bolschewismus diesen Krieg doch als Verteidigung seiner Heimat gegenüber einem als brutal hingestellten „Faschismus“ empfunden. Und die sowjetische Agitation hat mit nimmermüder Energie täglich die Pflicht zur Verteidigung der Heimat allen Sowjetbürgern sehr warm verkündet.
Bei Betrachtung dieses gesamten Problems ist also festzustellen, daß die Beurteilung der bolschewistischen Lehre als die Lehre des Untermenschentums heute nach wie vor zu Recht besteht, und was sich in diesen Tagen in Rumänien, Bulgarien und vor allen Dingen in Finnland abspielt, ist ein neuer eindeutiger Beweis dafür. Wenn sich diese bolschewistische Lehre trotz aller Brutalität und Opfer (die in der Sowjetunion in die Dutzende von Millionen Menschen gehen) doch in allen Konsequenzen nicht hat durchsetzen lassen, so spricht das nicht etwa für diesen Bolschewismus, sondern zeigt nur, daß selbst er in diesen Riesenräumen des Ostens gegen Urinstinkte nicht anzukämpfen vermochte und daß bei biologischer Fortentwicklung dieser Völker auch diese größten Tyrannen ihr zerstörendes Werk nicht ganz vollenden konnten.
Angesichts der politischen Entwicklung der letzten 25 Jahre erfasste die Einsicht in den Bolschewismus weite Kreise. Der nationalsozialistische Staatsgedanke ist der entschiedenste Gegensatz zu jener unterweltlichen, alle große Vergangenheit und arteigenes Wesen verspottenden bolschewistischen Lehre, und es versteht sich, daß der Haß gerade gegen das Großdeutsche Reich seitens der gesamten Judenschaft der Welt und damit der Moskauer Diktatoren besonders groß ist. Wenn jetzt das finnische Volk, das an sich weder für Rußland noch die Sowjetunion eine Gefahr darstellte und nur tapfer – jetzt jedoch verraten – um einen bescheidenen Aufbau seiner Heimat kämpfte, der Ausrottung in seinem besten Bestandteil entgegengeht, so ist das eine historische Warnung an das deutsche Volk, das auch, aber stark und bewusst, den Kampf um seine Vergangenheit, Freiheit und Zukunft führt.
Der harmlose Frager des an mich gerichteten Briefes würde bei einem Siege über uns in Deutschland ein Untermenschentum am Werke sehen, wie es schlimmer in der Weltgeschichte nicht dagewesen ist. Die gesamte sadistische jüdische Ober- und Unterwelt würde sich aus der ganzen Welt auf Deutschland stürzen. Ein englischer Lord hat kürzlich sogar den Vorschlag gemacht, die sich bildenden „jüdischen Brigaden“ nach dem Siege als Besatzungseinheit zu uns zu schicken. Die in Deutschland auch selbstverständlich noch vorhandenen kommunistischen Einzelkräfte würden sich summieren, und Verbrecher sowie hasserfüllte Nationalisten aus allen Nachbarländern würden dieses dann ohnmächtige, zerstückelte Deutschland überfluten, um ihm den Todesstoß zu versetzen.
Nach wie vor können wir dabei durchaus unterscheiden zwischen dieser nun einmal bestehenden unterweltlichen Macht und den Millionen Angehörigen der verschiedenen Volkstümer, die, für sich gesehen, oft harmlos und fleißig sein können und unter fester und vernünftiger Führung produktiv in die Gesamtarbeit der europäischen Völker einzusetzen wären. Es besteht also zwischen der nationalsozialistischen negativen Auffassung vom Bolschewismus an sich und der vielleicht positiven Beurteilung der breiten Massen der schaffenden Angehörigen verschiedener Volkstümer gar kein Widerspruch. Diese Volkstümer sind vielmehr das Opfer eines großangelegten internationalen, technisch ausgerüsteten Überfalls geworden, wurden im Laufe von 25 Jahren entnervt, einem Gewaltregime unterworfen, gegen das alle Revolten mit bloßen Fäusten und angesichts der Riesenräume unwirksam blieben. Dieses Gewaltregime steht nunmehr satanisch drohend gegen Europa, gestärkt noch durch die eingefügten, stets wieder angerufenen unausrottbaren Heimatinstinkte.
Daß das Deutsche Reich im Kampf gegen den Bolschewismus auch gezwungen ist, mit allen Werkzeugen des Bolschewismus zu kämpfen – ob sie nun freiwillig oder unfreiwillig in seinem Dienst stehen – ist eine Lebensfrage des deutschen Volkes überhaupt. Die blutige Lehrstunde, die der Bolschewismus heute allen europäischen Völkern in Rumänien, Bulgarien und namentlich in Finnland erteilt, wird vielleicht doch die Kräfte der europäischen Volkstümer, die überhaupt noch ein Dasein mit Volkskultur und nationaler Freiheit erstreben, nachdenklich machen müssen, und wir sind des festen Glaubens, daß auch jene „neutralen“ Demokraten, die mit ihren Zeitungs- und Rundfunkstimmen Finnland den Marsch ins Nichts anrieten, unter der Vorspiegelung, daß das „der Frieden“ sein würde, Angst vor ihren Ratschlägen bekommen.
Ob sich daraus noch eine Tatkraft entwickelt, können wir nicht wissen. Auf jeden Fall wird das deutsche Volk, geführt von der nationalsozialistischen Bewegung, diesen Lebenskampf für sich und Europa durchstehen, in der tiefen Überzeugung, hier einem unausweichbaren Schicksal gegenüberzustehen, dem man sich nicht unterwerfen darf, sondern dass man mit allen Kräften zu meistern hat.
Die Abwehrschlacht im Westen –
Von Antwerpen bis Belfort
vb. Berlin, 23. September –
Die Berichte der Korrespondenten aus dem Hauptquartier des Generals Eisenhower in Frankreich lassen Züge von Melancholie erkennen. Die letzten vierzehn Tage haben den Lorbeer etwas zerzaust, den allzu eilfertige Anhänger bereits auf das Haupt des Generals gedrückt hatten.
Die Engländer und Amerikaner werden sicherlich in den nächsten Wochen ihre Verbände zu verstärken suchen und dann neue Offensiven beginnen. Im Augenblick jedenfalls kommen sie nicht so weiter, wie sie das gerne möchten. Von der britischen ersten Luftlandedivision bei Arnheim kämpfen nur. noch Trümmer. Bei Nimwegen stockt der Angriff ebenso wie bei Aachen, in Lothringen müssen die Amerikaner örtliche Angriffe der Deutschen abwehren.
Über all diesen Feststellungen liegt ein Hauch von Verdrossenheit. Von ihnen gewinnt man aber auch erst das richtige Licht zur Beurteilung der Vorgänge im August. Als die Nordamerikaner einmal bei Avranches durchgebrochen waren, stießen sie in Mittelfrankreich in freies Gelände. Hier standen schwache deutsche Sicherungstruppen, die sich dem Gegner auch entschlossen entgegenwarfen, aber keine Armeen. So konnten die Amerikaner mehrere Wochen lang große Strecken Landes schnell überwinden. Es war selbstverständlich, daß unter solchen Umständen sich auch die beiden deutschen Armeen aus der Normandie zurückziehen mußten. Ihr Rückzug war schwierig. An vielen Stellen wurde der Zusammenhang der deutschen Truppen unterbrochen. Eine eigentliche Front bestand nicht mehr. In die Lücken schoben sich amerikanische und britische Panzerverbände. Auch in Nordfrankreich und schließlich in Belgien konnte so der Vormarsch der Verbände der Westmächte im Sturmtempo vor sich gehen.
Diese Ereignisse sind nun, das ist heute deutlich zu sehen, beim Gegner auf das gründlichste missverstanden worden. Da sein Vormarsch so schnell vor sich ging r glaubte man drüben, das müsse immer so weitergehen. Da die Deutschen in der Schlacht und auch im Rückzug natürlich auch Verluste hatten, bewegte man sich im Hauptquartier Eisenhowers bereits in den rosigsten Träumen. Man hoffte, wenn man an den Reichsgrenzen ankommen werde, dort überhaupt keinen organisierten deutschen Widerstand zu finden.
Das alles sind nicht nachträgliche deutsche Unterstellungen. Im August sind beim Feind genug Äußerungen gemacht worden, die diese Hoffnungsseligkeit bestätigen. Von solchen weitgespannten Erwartungen aus wird die Kühle des Tones verständlich, mit der heute aus der Umgebung Eisenhowers berichtet wird. In Wirklichkeit hätte es nur einen Weg gegeben, diese stürmischen Hoffnungen zu verwirklichen; die deutschen Armeen in Frankreich zu vernichten. Man weiß, daß der General Eisenhower das mehr als einmal versucht hat; man weiß auch, daß es ihm misslungen ist. Die Kriegsgeschichte wird die Gründe prüfen. Heute genügt die Tatsache, daß ein wesentliches Stück der Operationspläne des Gegners nicht erfüllt werden konnte.
Die Gefechte und Rückzugskämpfe im Monat August sind von einem großen Teil der Weltöffentlichkeit so verstanden worden, als gehe es dabei um den Besitz von Paris, Orléans, Lyon, Verdun, Lille, als gehe es um den Besitz von Frankreich. Man konnte sie nicht schlimmer missverstehen. Nach dem Tage von Avranches war es ohnehin klar, daß die deutsche Führung darauf verzichten würde, Frankreich zu behaupten. Das ist keine billige Hinterherweisheit. Unsere Leser erinnern sich, daß solche Gedanken bereits sehr früh in den Spalten des „VB“ ausgesprochen wurden. Die Schlacht in Frankreich hatte ein ganz anderes Ziel. Und sie ging um einen ganz anderen, viel höheren Preis, als um den Besitz von Paris oder Verdun; ob es den Deutschen gelingen werde, eine neue Front aufzubauen. Von dieser Frage hing das Schicksal des Feldzugs im Westen ab.
Heute kann mit Gelassenheit, aber nicht ohne Erleichterung festgestellt werden, daß dieses Ziel erreicht ist. Gestützt auf die alten Befestigungen an der Grenze des Reiches, verstärkt durch die neuen Systeme der Schanzarbeit in diesen Monaten, mit der Neugruppierung der aus Frankreich heimgekehrten Divisionen und mit Unterstützung frischer Verbände aus dem Reich, so ist dem Generalfeldmarschall Model von neuem die erstaunliche Leistung gelungen, die er acht Wochen vorher in Polen schon einmal vollbracht hatte. Diese Front ist biegsam, sie ist an verschiedenen Stellen verschieden stark, aber sie ist da, und ihre einzelnen Glieder stehen auch im taktischen Zusammenhang miteinander.
US-Truppen erbaten Waffenruhe
Berlin, 23. September –
In den Vormittagsstunden des 20. September führten stärkere nordamerikanische Kräfte einen Angriff gegen die deutschen Stellungen südlich Aachen. Die deutschen Truppen schlugen den Feind ab und fügten ihm hohe Verluste zu. Seine Ausfälle waren so empfindlich, daß er am Nachmittag durch zwei Parlamentäre eine einstündige Waffenruhe erbat, um seine zahlreichen Verwundeten zu bergen. Dem Wunsch der Nordamerikaner wurde entsprochen. Als nach Ablauf der Frist der Kampf wieder aufgenommen wurde, warfen unsere Truppen die Nordamerikaner endgültig zurück.
Führer HQ (September 24, 1944)
Kommuniqué des Oberkommandos der Wehrmacht
In Mittelholland landete der Feind gestern erneut stärkere Kräfte aus der Luft mit Schwerpunkt im Raum südlich und südöstlich Nimwegen. Eigene Truppen traten sofort zum Angriff an. Die schweren Kämpfe sind noch im Gange.
Die eigenen Absetzbewegungen in Westholland nehmen den geplanten Verlauf. Südöstlich Aachen und an der Eifelfront wurden auch gestern alle Angriffe des Gegners abgewiesen. Die starken Angriffe des Feindes östlich Lunéville führten zu Anfangserfolgen, wurden dann aber abgefangen. Seit Beginn der Kämpfe vernichteten unsere Panzerverbände hier 106 schwere amerikanische „Sherman“-Panzer. Die in den Brückenköpfen Épinal und Remiremont kämpfenden eigenen Truppen wurden nach schwerem Kampf auf das Ostufer der Mosel zurückgenommen. Die erbitterten Straßenkämpfe in Remiremont halten an. Südlich der Stadt wurden zahlreiche Angriffe des Feindes abgewiesen, ein Einbruch im Gegenstoß bereinigt. In Boulogne leisten die Reste der Besatzung in ihren Stützpunkten südlich des Hafens immer noch tapfersten Widerstand. In Saint-Nazaire und Lorient blieben feindliche Angriffe erfolglos. Marinefernkampfbatterien nahmen Folkestone und Dover wirksam unter Feuer.
Der Großraum von London lag auch gestern unter dem schweren Feuer der „V1.“
In Italien erzielte der Feind in den auch gestern im Raum Firenzuola anhaltenden schweren Kämpfen geringen Bodengewinn, nachdem mehrere Angriffe unter hohen Verlusten an der eigenen Abwehr gescheitert waren. An der Adria wurden bei auflebender Kampftätigkeit mehrere örtliche Vorstöße des Gegners abgewiesen.
Aus dem südwestlichen Siebenbürgen wird anhaltende örtliche Kampftätigkeit gemeldet. Beiderseits Torenburg sind neue Durchbruchsversuche des Gegners an der zähen Abwehr und durch erfolgreiche Gegenangriffe deutscher und ungarischer Panzerkräfte gescheitert. Bei vergeblichen Angriffen überlegener rumänischer Verbände im Raum südlich Neumarkt erlitt der Feind hohe Verluste: örtliche Angriffe der Bolschewisten im Szekler Zipfel und in den Ostkarpaten blieben erfolglos. Vor den Karpatenpässen im Raum südlich Sanok und Krosno dauern die schweren Kämpfe an. Gegenstöße unserer Panzerkräfte und Grenadiere verhinderten auch gestern die feindlichen Durchbruchsversuche. Unsere gepanzerten Angriffsgruppen haben südwestlich Mitau bisher 91 Panzer und 184 Geschütze des Gegners vernichtet oder erbeutet. Die im Nordabschnitt fortgesetzten Angriffe massierter bolschewistischer Infanterie- und Panzerkräfte wurden auch gestern unter Abschuß zahlreicher feindlicher Panzer abgewiesen oder aufgefangen. Verbände der Luftwaffe griffen mit gutem Erfolg in die erbitterten Kämpfe ein. Trotz starken Drucks der Bolschewisten gehen die Bewegungen unserer Truppen planmäßig weiter. Die Luftwaffe schoss in den beiden letzten Tagen an der Ostfront 73 feindliche Flugzeuge ab und vernichtete 51 Panzer, mehrere hundert Fahrzeuge sowie zahlreiche Geschütze.
Bei Kämpfen gegen Banden in der nordöstlichen Slowakei wurden nach bisher vorliegenden Meldungen über vierzig Sowjetkommissare gefangengenommen.
Tagesangriffe nordamerikanischer Bomber richteten sich gegen einige Orte in Südostdeutschland und im Sudetenland. Bei Nacht griffen britische Bomber rheinisch-westfälisches Industriegebiet und besonders die Städte Neuß und Düsseldorf an. Luftverteidigungskräfte schossen über dem Reichsgebiet und dem holländischen Raum 32 anglo-amerikanische Flugzeuge ab.
Bei den Kämpfen um Metz und die Moselstellungen hat die Fahnenjunkerschule VI Metz wiederholte Angriffe überlegener feindlicher Kräfte zerschlagen. Durch hervorragende Tapferkeit und Standfestigkeit hat sie wesentlich zum Halten des Brückenkopfes beigetragen. Bei den schweren Kämpfen nördlich Florenz hat sich die aus Soldaten aller Gaue des Reiches zusammengesetzte 334. Infanteriedivision in Abwehr und Gegenangriff unter Führung von Generalleutnant Böhlke hervorragend bewährt.
Durch besondere Tapferkeit haben sich auf dem italienischen Kriegsschauplatz ausgezeichnet: Hauptmann Holtmann, Kommandeur des I./Grenadierregiments 1059, Hauptmann Hauber, Kommandeur des II./Fallschirmsturmregiments, Hauptmann Boine, Kommandeur des III./Fallschirmsturmregiments.
Bei der Verteidigung eines Brückenkopfes im Raum von Torenburg hat sich der Kommandeur eines ungarischen Infanterieregiments, Oberst Böscörmenyi, durch persönliche Tapferkeit und besondere Standfestigkeit hervorgetan.
Bei den Kämpfen im Raum von Warschau hat sich eine aus Truppen des Heeres, der Fallschirmpanzerdivision „Hermann Göring“ und der Polizei zusammengesetzte Kampfgruppe unter der Führung von Major Max Reck durch besondere Standfestigkeit und Entschlussfreudigkeit ausgezeichnet.
Supreme HQ Allied Expeditionary Force (September 24, 1944)
FROM
(A) SHAEF FORWARD
ORIGINATOR
PRD, Communique Section
DATE-TIME OF ORIGIN
241100A Sept.
TO FOR ACTION
(1) AGWAR (Pass to WND)
TO (W) FOR INFORMATION (INFO)
(2) FIRST US ARMY GP
(3) ADV HQ 12 ARMY GP
(4) FWD ECH (MAIN) 12 ARMY GP
(5) AEAF
(6) ANCXF
(7) EXFOR MAIN
(8) EXFOR REAR
(9) DEFENSOR, OTTAWA
(10) CANADIAN C/S, OTTAWA
(11) WAR OFFICE
(12) ADMIRALTY
(13) AIR MINISTRY
(14) ETOUSA
(15) SACSEA
(16) CMHQ (Pass to RCAF & RCN)
(17) COM Z APO 871
(18) SHAEF MAIN
(REF NO.)
NONE
(CLASSIFICATION)
IN THE CLEAR
Communiqué No. 169
Heavy engagements continued yesterday in the Allied salient in Holland.
Fighting was particularly fierce in the vicinity of Arnhem where the enemy is expecting strong pressure. We have increased our hold on the area between the Nederrijn and the Waal. Our positions in the Nijmegen area have been improved and we have strengthened the bridgehead over the Bois-le-Duc Canal near the base of the salient.
Our airborne operations were further reinforced during the day.
Ahead of the transport aircraft and gliders, fighters and fighter-bombers in strength dropped fragmentation bombs on numerous gun positions and carried out low-level strafing attacks. Many batteries were silenced. Other fighters provided escort and cover for the airborne operations. The enemy was active in the air and a number of combats with our fighters resulted. According to reports so far received, 27 enemy aircraft were shot down. Fourteen of our fighters are missing.
East of Antwerp, our forces advanced after establishing a bridgehead across the Meuse–Escaut Canal. Northwest of the city, we have made a slight advance.
The entire front from Geilenkirchen area to the Meurthe Valley remains relatively unchanged, with stubborn enemy resistance and numerous counterattacks in all sectors.
In the Aachen area, our patrols are meeting fire from the outskirts of the city, where the enemy appears to be well entrenched. Stolberg is being cleared of isolated German pockets, but southeast of the town our troops are meeting stubborn resistance in their advance. East of Büsbach, a counterattacking German force was driven off with an estimated loss of 40 percent of its strength.
German pockets are being mopped-up in the sector bordering northern Luxembourg, and our units along the entire German-Luxembourg frontier are receiving moderate artillery fire from the enemy.
South of Metz, stubborn enemy resistance continues, and a small counterattack at Pournoy was broken up by our artillery. We have made gains nine miles north of Nancy, where the town of Morey was freed. Enemy tanks and infantry are offering strong opposition in the area east of Nancy.
Our troops have advanced to the vicinity of Bénaménil, ten miles east of Lunéville.
Gun emplacements on the island of Walcheren in the Scheldt Estuary were attacked by a small force of heavy bombers.
Strongpoints at Calais were attacked by medium and light bombers.
Fighter-bombers hit fortified positions in the Trier area.
COORDINATED WITH: G-2, G-3 to C/S
THIS MESSAGE MAY BE SENT IN CLEAR BY ANY MEANS
/s/
Precedence
“OP” - AGWAR
“P” - Others
ORIGINATING DIVISION
PRD, Communique Section
NAME AND RANK TYPED. TEL. NO.
D. R. JORDAN, Lt Col FA Ext. 9
AUTHENTICATING SIGNATURE
/s/U.S. Navy Department (September 24, 1944)
CINCPAC Communiqué No. 130
Carrier‑based aircraft of the Pacific Fleet, continuing the smashing attack against the Northern Philippines begun on September 20 (West Longitude Date), took an additional heavy toll of enemy planes, ships and ground installations on September 21. Total destruction in the two-day strike was extensive and the enemy suffered heavily.
The following damage, part of which has been previously reported, was inflicted at and near Clark and Nichols Fields, in the Manila Harbor area and at the Cavite Naval Base during the two-day operations in Southern Luzon:
SHIPS SUNK: 40 classified as ships; six small craft.
SHIPS PROBABLY SUNK: 11 classified as ships.
SHIPS DAMAGED: 35 classified as ships; 11 small craft; two floating drydocks.
AIRCRAFT DESTROYED: 169 planes shot down in combat; 188 planes destroyed on the ground.
AIRCRAFT DAMAGED: 45 planes probably damaged on the ground; three planes damaged by ship’s gunfire.
GROUND INSTALLATIONS DAMAGED AND DESTROYED: Extensive and widespread damage was done to buildings, warehouses, railroad equipment, oil storage tanks, harbor installations, hangars, shops and stored supplies and equipment.
Our own losses in this daring and highly successful strike were 11 planes in combat, 10 pilots and five aircrewmen. There was no loss or damage to any of our surface ships.
The total revised box score for the Third Fleet, under the command of Adm. William F. Halsey Jr., USN, since it began operating in the Far Western Pacific now stands at: 122 ships and 61 small craft sunk, 137 ships and 109 small craft damaged, 380 planes shot down in the air, 598 destroyed on the ground, total aircraft destroyed 978, crippling damage to air fields and Naval establishments. In addition, ships and carrier‑based aircraft of the Third Fleet have supported the assaults on Palau. Our own combat losses have been 51 planes, 37 pilots and 20 crewmen.
The operations of the Third Fleet have forced the enemy to withdraw its naval forces from their former anchorages in the Philippines and to seek new refuges in the same general area, have disrupted interisland communications, and have broken his air force in the Philippines just as operations of the Fifth Fleet broke the enemy carrier‑based air force in the Battle of the Philippine Sea.
Chichijima and Hahajima in the Bonin Islands were bombed on September 22 by 7th Army Air Force Liberators. Iwo Jima in the Volcano Islands was attacked twice on September 22 by 7th Army Air Force Liberators. Meager anti-aircraft fire was encountered in all attacks.
A single 7th Army Air Force Liberator bombed Pagan on September 22.
On the same day, 7th Army Air Force Mitchell bombers attacked Nauru. Anti-aircraft fire was moderate.
Corsairs of the 4th Marine Aircraft Wing carried our further neutralization raids against enemy-held atolls in the Marshalls, striking at Mille on September 21‑22 and at Jaluit and Wotje on September 22. Dauntless dive bombers attacked Maloelap on September 21 and 22.
CINCPAC Press Release No. 564
For Immediate Release
September 24, 1944
An attempt by the enemy to reinforce his beleaguered troops in the northern end of Peleliu Island was broken up on September 23 (West Longitude Date). A convoy of 13 barges and one motor sampan, carrying men and equipment, was sighted northeast of Peleliu. It was immediately brought under fire by U.S. warships, some of which pushed through mined waters to close range. A number of the barges were seen to explode. Later ten wrecked barges were counted on the reef northeast of Peleliu and the remainder were thought to have sunk. A few of the enemy probably were able to swim ashore without their equipment.
On the same day in Malakal Harbor, two camouflaged ships previously damaged by our aircraft, were bombarded by a U.S. cruiser which scored at least one direct hit.
Marine forces on Peleliu made small gains on both the right and left flanks during September 23. On Angaur, mopping-up operations continue.
The Pittsburgh Press (September 24, 1944)
Air army patrols reach British; gliders land more men in Holland
Arnhem battle called decisive struggle of west by Germans
Still holding out in the Arnhem area on the north bank of the upper Rhine (inset map A), encircled airborne army patrols pushed to a junction with the British 2nd Army, which had driven to the south bank of the river and was reinforced by a new glider-borne force. A German tank force which thrust a wedge across the British corridor between Eindhoven and Nijmegen was repulsed. The U.S. 1st Army, while falling back across the Luxembourg border in the Diekirch area (inset map B), to the north captured the German industrial city of Stolberg. The U.S. 3rd Army smashed Nazi tank attacks in the area bounded by Château-Salins, Dieuze and Lunéville east of the Moselle River, and the Allied 6th Army Group drove against the Belfort Gap on the south.
SHAEF, London, England (UP) –
Patrols from the heroic Allied parachutist band cut off around Arnhem fought their way south across the upper branch of the Rhine Saturday and established contact with the British 2nd Army as a new sky army of thousands of Anglo-American troops swept down by glider to join the crucial battle.
Berlin called the struggle at Arnhem the decisive test of the war in the west and in an attempt to nip off the allied corridor Adolf Hitler sent 200 tanks lunging against its base 25 miles to the south. They were hurled back after temporarily cutting the vital Eindhoven–Nijmegen highway and driving a wedge in the salient.
Patrols pushing across the river from the airborne “island” established the “barest sort” of contact with the British rescue force, Allied headquarters said, but the fact that they were able to get across sent hopes soaring that a full junction would soon be made.
Furious battles raged along the 60-mile length of the Allied salient across Holland, but despite waves of counterattacks by crack SS and panzer units, the Allies were able to widen the corridor in at least two sectors.
Westward of Eindhoven, gains of four to five miles were made on a 12-mile front, while in the Nijmegen sector along the main branch of the Rhine, Lt. Gen. Sir Miles C. Dempsey’s 2nd Army infantry pushed eastward three miles, capturing Beek on the German border.
A sky train 170 miles long – extending unbroken from British bases to Holland landed the new sky army. Scores of DC-3 “Dakota” transport planes towed hundreds of big gliders bulging with troops and supplies. The reinforcements were landed successfully despite strong opposition from enemy ground defenses and also from the Luftwaffe, headquarters announced.
RAF and U.S. fighter planes in strength provided cover for the landings.
The reinforcements apparently were landed outside the pocket of airborne troops on the north bank of the river, since a special bulletin announced specifically that they descended in support of the 2nd Army’s drive.
Berlin said that reinforcements were landed between the two branches of the river but were not able to smash open the German “bolt” position north of Nijmegen on the southern branch or break through to the rescue of the parachutists around Arnhem.
Main bridge intact
Linking up with a smaller airborne force on the south bank of the river, the British found the main bridge to Arnhem still intact but it was unclear in late reports which side controlled the crossing.
The Arnhem area became the flaming local point of virtually the entire 250-mile front as sharp but inconclusive battles were fought along the West Wall inside Germany and battered enemy panzer forces withdraw to the Moselle sector after losing 317 tanks in 11 days.
The capture of Stolberg, five miles east of Aachen, was formally announced although strongpoints in the main city and industrial suburbs remained to be mopped up. With a population of 17,000, Stolberg is the largest German city yet taken.
Detour Nazi roadblock
Driving on four miles beyond Elst after detouring a German roadblock at that Dutch town, the British 2nd Army breasted withering fire from their flanks to reach the upper Rhine, a smaller branch of the main stream which had been forced at Nijmegen.
Against fanatical resistance from SS and other crack units, the British were now battling to effect a crossing and bring full relief to the paratroopers, mostly British units but including two groups of Polish reinforcements. Although they had been fighting against increasing odds for six days, the airborne troops’ commander messaged that morale was still high especially with rescue apparently so near.
Beyond the upper Rhine, which nearer the sea becomes the Lek, there is only the small tributary, Ijssel, separating the Allies from the rolling plains of Northwest Germany and the Ruhr, and the battle for the Reich was being fought along the water barriers rather than the already partly-turned West Wall.
Dispatches from Berlin via Zürich quoted a German War Office spokesman as calling the battle for Holland “decisive for the entire war in the west,” and said that Adolf Hitler had rushed suicide units of his own private guard to the Arnhem area.
Despite the short distance separating the 2nd Army from the main airborne force across the river, only several hundred yards, the situation of the parachutists was still described at headquarters as “touch and go.”
Meanwhile, a huge panzer force backed by crack infantry groups lashed out at the narrow British corridor through Holland in the area between Veghel and Uden, respectively, 12 and 15 miles north of Eindhoven. In a surging, bloody battle the enemy succeeded in smashing across the main Eindhoven–Nijmegen road, jugular vein for the units across the Rhine, but with the help of low-flying typhoon rocket planes British infantry succeeded in stemming the assault and clearing the road.
Batteries rain heavy fire
German batteries were still raining down heavy fire on the supply artery, however, and official dispatches said the German attack had achieved “a certain amount of success.”
A similar but smaller attack from the west, where some 70,000 to 100,000 Germans have been cut off by the British drive, was smashed and the British went on to widen their corridor to 18 miles in the Eindhoven area on a 12-mile front.
United Press writer Ronald Clark reported that the whole of Central Holland had become a series of separate battlefields, with the Germans fighting fiercely from small, bypassed villages, utilizing whatever local forces were still intact.
Rain and low clouds prevented the air forces from joining in the main Arnhem battle early Saturday but later in the day huge forces of fighters and bombers were reported heading for Holland.
First Army breaks attack
On the 1st Army front, U.S. artillery drove back a counterattack northwest of Geilenkirchen where the Yanks had driven across the frontier from Dutch Maastricht, and another counterblow was beaten back in the Büsbach area southeast of Stolberg, costing the Germans 40 percent of the forces involved.
Heavy enemy resistance was encountered in the Hürtgen Forest in the same general area, where the Germans had thrown up an elaborate system of pillboxes and roadblocks behind the breached main defenses of the Siegfried Line.
The Americans were forced to give ground for the second straight day east of Diekirch, which is in Luxembourg, where dispatches indicated Friday the Yanks had been thrown back from German soil.
A German communiqué asserted that the Americans had been cleared from their own river bridgehead at the Luxembourg frontier in the Echternach area, with heavy casualties inflicted on the U.S. 5th Armored Division.
Front dispatches said the Germans lost 60 more tanks in the Moselle River in 24 hours in contrast to “considerably smaller” U.S. losses and the enemy was reported withdrawing from the Lunéville–Château-Salins area to a new defense line behind the Seille River.
Taking advantage of rain and mud which hampered American efforts to disrupt the defense preparations, the Germans were reported digging in strongly behind the 40-foot-wide Seille, which parallels the Moselle south of Metz and joins it above the citadel.
The Germans were apparently still determined to hold Metz at all costs and were strengthening its perimeter forts.
Sixth consolidating gains
Units of the 6th Army Group which had thrown a number of bridgeheads across the Moselle farther south were consolidating their gains despite counterattacks which at one point numbered nine in 24 hours. Lt. Gen. Alexander M. Patch’s 7th Army from the south was working closely with the U.S. 3rd Army in these operations.
On the Dutch southwest coast, 1st Canadian Army troops bottled up the German remnants on the south side of the Schelde estuary between the sea and the Leopold Canal while Polish troops on their right cleared out the Axel-Hulst nearer Antwerp. Northeast of the port, a Canadian unit fought its way across a canal just northeast of the city in a drive to clean out the troublesome enemy garrison in Fort Mexem.
It was announced that the Canadians captured more than 9,000 prisoners at Boulogne.
Arnhem battle crucial, Washington believes
Washington (UP) –
Military observers, confident of a final Allied victory in the great battle now raging along the Rhine for the Arnhem bridgehead, said tonight that this campaign may be the most decisive of the war.
Whatever chance the Allies have of ending the war before next spring may be lost, they said, if the Germans succeed in holding off our heavy armor long enough to annihilate the airborne army now hanging on to the Rhine positions.
If the Allies break through the enemy positions in force, they would have a chance to end the war before winter, the observers said. This breach would mean that the West Wall had been outflanked, the barrier of the Rhine River bridges and the Ruhr road to Berlin thrown open.
The battle is now in its most delicate stage for the Allies, seesawing and swirling with such rapidity that it is impossible to get a clear picture of it here. However, some decision should become apparent within the next week, it was believed.