1933. Fascism Spreads Throughout Europe

"A Movement of Many Shades"

"Members of the Francist Party, one of many fascist leagues in France in the 1930s, march past a church in Paris," February 13, 1934 (source)

From The New York Times, September 17, 1933:

FASCISM'S INROADS IN EUROPE: A MOVEMENT OF MANY SHADES

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While the Mussolini Pattern Has Been Followed in General, The Hitler Modifications Are Popular With Some Groups

A further spread of fascism was seemingly foreshadowed by Chancellor Dollfuss's announcement at Vienna last Monday, when he said, speaking for the Austrian Government: "We will build up a Catholic, German State which will be thoroughly Austrian upon a corporative [Fascist] basis. It will be an authoritarian State, based on corporations formed on occupational lines."

The situation in Austria, coupled with the recent amazing Nazi demonstration at Nuremberg, at which Fascist organizations from other countries were represented, brings to the fore the question of the extent of the Fascist movement and of the variations from the Italian prototype. Where has fascism shown itself in such organized form as to command attention?

But, first, what is now understood by fascism? Sometimes the ends of the Fascists seem vague and confused, but that was said of the first fascio which Benito Mussolini organized in Milan in the Spring of 1929. "Fascio," meaning bundle, indicated merely the strong union of the movement's adherents; the term fascism which grew out of it has been variously interpreted, but in general it signifies a movement for national regulation of the individual without destruction of private property rights. Because of their attitude toward property, the Fascists have been particularly bitter toward socialism and communism.

Mussolini's Imitators

The German Nazis have imitated Mussolini, even in many details, although they have added such departures as race persecution in their efforts to glorify their Teutonic nation; and the rudimentary Fascist movements in other countries have followed either the strict Mussolini or the modified Hitler model. They have sprung up in parliamentary countries like Sweden and Holland, as well as in dictatorial countries like Poland and Hungary—though in few have they mustered, so far, more than a nominal following.

In England there are two Fascist groups, one led by Sir Oswald Mosley, the other composed of admirers of Hitler. Neither party appeals strongly to the British temperament. In Ireland the old Army Comrades Association has taken the name of National Guard, donned blue shirts and set itself as a check on President de Valera and his Republican Army.

The Struggle in Austria

Two Fascist groups vie for control in Austria. The Heimwehr, formed after the World War to protect the new frontiers of the dismembered nation, rose to power when the late Chancellor Seipel used it as a guard against the Socialists. For several years the Heimwehr, although illegal under the Constitution and the peace treaties, enjoyed the open support of the Clerical government. It was strongly present in the crowds that greeted the Chancellor in the great national demonstration at Vienna last week.

Combating the Heimwehr today is the National Socialist movement directed from Germany as part of the Nazi drive. The Austrian Nazis recognize no frontier between their land and Germany. They follow the Hitlerites in all things, including pan-German union and anti-Semitism.

The present Austrian Government is really a Clerical-Fascist dictatorship, with the Heimwehr represented. It governs against, first, the Nazis, and, second, the Socialists, and deals severely with their organizations and their newspapers.

Situation in Hungary

Fascism is more or less in power in Hungary. Premier Gömbös, an admirer of Mussolini, was leader of the Hungarian National-Fascist movement before he took office. This movement grew out of the secret societies that took part against Béla Kun and his Bolsheviki in 1920. At first it inflicted great cruelties upon the Jewish population. Lately it has modified its anti-Semitic attitude.

The German Nazi infection has caused difficulty, especially among university students, but has not been a danger to the State. Pro-German propaganda is unpopular in Hungary, and Professor Bleyer of Budapest University has virtually been driven from his post because of it.

Poland might be called a semi-Fascist State. The government is a dictatorship that tries to keep up the appearance of a parliamentary democracy. Marshal Piłsudski's dictatorship began as anti-Fascist, and with Socialist help in 1926 it defeated a government with Fascist inclinations. Piłsudski, who is not a party leader and has no program, is supported today by a bloc composed of Democrats and Fascists, Monarchists and Socialists, created to uphold the national government. The Fascist groups in this bloc are outspoken, but curb their special ambitions through loyalty to the Marshal.

One organization behind Piłsudski is the Legion of Youth, whose program is radical and calls for nationalization of key industries. The league is neither nationalistic nor anti-Semitic.

The Nationalists, Piłsudski foes on the Right, stand for parliamentary democracy but have strong Fascist leanings and are violently antagonistic toward the Jews. Their party militia, with a membership of about 10,000, has now been dissolved by the government.

Finland's National Patriots

In Finland the National Patriots, strongly Fascist in program, are gaining ground. They are the logical success of the Lapua movement of 1929, which was suspended by the Supreme Court after such excesses as the abduction of ex-President Ståhlberg. Parliamentarianism has no appeal for the National Patriots so long as Communists and Socialists take part in Finnish legislation.

The Patriots would limit citizenship to those belonging to the nation racially, culturally and historically. They would ban the parties of the Left, oblige every citizen to perform work, require the State to provide the work, and exclude all but their own class from public service and control of public expenditure. Intensification of religious and nationalistic instruction is demanded. The movement has a lively nucleus in every parish.

Sweden's Nazis

Sweden is full of dissatisfaction with the machinery of democratic government. Nazism has taken root in the farming districts of the Skåne (Southern Sweden) and there is bigotry toward the Jews and hatred of fixed-price stores and international finance. The Swedish Nazis, however, are hopelessly divided. It is within the Conservative party that really significant developments are happening.

The old Conservative leaders are out of touch with the younger elements, who demand greater activity and the adoption of such propaganda tactics as the Socialists have found successful. Minority groups within the party favor a Fascist policy.

The Italian idea has awakened echoes in Holland ever since 1922, but only since the Hitler success in Germany have the currents against Parliament and democracy gained any force. Today in Holland there are ten Fascist groups, the largest being the National Socialist Movement and the General Dutch Fascist League, both of them looking more toward Italy than toward Germany. At the April election the Fascist groups of all shades in Holland polled less than 2 per cent of the votes.

In Spain the Fascist idea has again become a force, although it operates now without uniforms and rituals. Retired army men long for the "good old days" of the Primo de Rivera dictatorship. The middle-class business men yearn with them. Against socialism, which has become strong throughout the country, the Fascist discontent is directed, and Socialist leaders watch the unrest with apprehension.

There is little Fascist organization, however. The army would have to lead any such movement, with the civil elements falling in behind, and the army has been well purged of officers suspected of having anti-socialistic bias.

Fascism in France

The manifestations of fascism in France are confined to one organization (which denies that it is Fascist), and a vague movement for constitutional reform intended to strengthen the government at the expense of the two electoral bodies.

In the league called the Jeunesses Patriotes is a group of extreme nationalists whose doctrines have a Fascist look. The movement, which claims 300,000 adherents, began in 1924 as a reaction against a supposed menace of communism. Two years later it turned its animosities toward Marxism and the cartel of Socialists and Radical Socialists in Parliament.

Czechoslovakia has two Fascist movements, potentially dangerous to the State in event of foreign war, but controllable in normal times. The Czech Fascists are enemies of Foreign Minister Beneš and would like to turn the democratic republic into a national-Fascist State. They are strong, having penetrated the public services, including the army. The other Fascist movement of Czechoslovakia is composed of Germans who wear Hitler brown.

Portugal Is Disturbed

In Portugal the Nacional Sindicalistas take their cue from Rome and Berlin, and their blue-shirt membership, now 18,000, is growing. Royalists and members of the intellectual class support them, Communism is opposed. Democracy is attacked on the ground that it puts the competent and the incompetent on an equal footing and leads to instability of government.

The Sindicalistas demand obligatory syndicalization of workers and popular representation through provinces, municipalities and professional and trade guilds.

Switzerland has Fascist movements, notable among youth. The National Front has lately united the German-Swiss and the French-Swiss Nationalists, and this double organization agitates against the liberalism prevailing in the mountain land. Another group, the Federal Front, is more military and leans toward Hitler.

Yugoslavia, under the rule of King Alexander, tolerates no fascism from either Italy or Germany. Nationalism here employs as its chief instrument the Sokols, gymnastic organizations entirely Pan-Serbian.

Other Balkan Fascists

Around the University of Sofia, in Bulgaria, many battles are fought between students communistically inclined and a growing group of their fellows who have espoused Fascist principles. An older form of Bulgarian fascism finds its expression in Ivan Michailoff's faction of the Macedonian Revolutionary Organization, which is given to shooting down people who oppose its prime ideal, the liberation of Macedonia and parts of Bulgaria from the Serbs, the Greeks and the Rumanians. The student fascism of Bulgaria is definitely anti-Semitic; the older Fascist movement not at all.

In Rumania the leading exponents of fascism belong to the "Iron Guard" of anti-Semitic Professor Cuza of Jassy University Their program demands, mainly, the expulsion of all Jews. The movement has grown since the World War. Essentially it is a student movement, but in times of economic depression Rumanian governments have more than once allowed the Iron Guard to propagandize the countryside, telling the peasants that the Jews are to blame for the high cost of living.

A more recent Fascist movement in Rumania, under Gregor Filipescu, is somewhat Italian in style and is not essentially anti-Semitic.

Thus has the seed of fascism, sown in Italy after the war, spread through Europe and taken root. In many forms it expresses the discontentment of people under tribulation. In two great countries it has risen to control. In other lands it awaits its opportunity.

1930. Hitler's Outburst at Leipzig Draws Strong Reactions and Ridicule

A "Feather-Headed Demagogue"

Adolf Hitler testifies as a witness before the Reichsgericht in Leipzig on September 25, 1930

In September 1930, Adolf Hitler testified in Leipzig as a witness before the Reichsgericht, the German Supreme Court, during the trial of three Reichswehr officers accused of treason. He used the platform to bring attention to his movement and promised a violent, authoritarian future for the country under Nazi leadership.

The trial occurred a week after the 1930 German federal election in which the Nazis received over six million votes, coming in second to the Social Democratic Party and raising international alarm.

Reactions in the United States and Britain were largely negative, but the general consensus remained that although the Nazis posed a significant threat, they were unlikely to maintain enough popular support to take power. The six million votes were attributed to "economic and social grievances."

The Times said:

"Granted that [Hitler's] party represents a multitude of discontents rather than a single constructive aim and that its sudden access to strength is a product of temporary economic distress and juvenile impatience, the fact remains that it has just polled over 6,000,000 votes and is the second strongest party in the Reichstag."

The New York Times weighed in:

"There is an innocence almost childish about the detailed fashion in which [Hitler] set out to be blood-curdling. Almost one expected him to state the precise number of heads that would roll from the guillotine when the Fascists have taken over control of the German nation and inaugurated the day of reckoning."

Below are four contemporary articles about the incident and the reactions it generated.

From The New York Times, September 26, 1930, pp. 1, 11:

HITLER WOULD SCRAP VERSAILLES TREATY AND USE GUILLOTINE

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German Fascists' Chief Says at Leipzig Trial That He Will Set Up "Third Reich"

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TO TRY LEGAL MEANS FIRST

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If These Fail, He Testifies, "We Shall Ignore or Circumvent" Pacts "Forced" on Nation

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WARNS OF DEATH FOR MANY

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He Tells Judge He Will See Heads of Leaders of 1918 Revolution Rolling in the Sand

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By GUIDO ENDERIS

LEIPZIG, Sept. 25 — A guillotine functioning after approved historic precedent awaits the men who made the German revolution of 1918 if the National Socialist party (Fascists) ever gets hold of the government. This was solemnly predicted by Adolf Hitler today at the outset of his testimony before the criminal bench of the German Supreme Court, which is trying three Reichswehr officers for high treason in connection with alleged Fascist plotting in the German Army.

"If our movement succeeds," Herr Hitler said to the judge, "we shall erect a people's tribunal before which the November criminals of 1918 shall expiate their crime and I frankly predict you shall then see their heads rolling in the sand."

Will Combat Treaties

Responding to questions from the judge, Herr Hitler said:

"We the National Socialists refuse to recognize the treaties concluded over the heads of the German people as of permanent duration and also propose to fight the war guilt lie. We shall seek to abrogate or revise these by diplomatic negotiations, and I solemnly assert if these fail we shall proceed to ignore or circumvent them, with legal means if possible; failing that, with illegal means. The world may call that illegal, but I am solely answerable to the German people for my actions."

The judge then asked whether the National Socialists proposed to stage a physical revolution in Germany. Herr Hitler said he believed that was impossible because the party was not an outlet for a revolutionary movement, but merely aspired to bring about a gigantic moral uprising along peaceful lines.

Herr Hitler made use of the opportunity to unburden himself of a patriotic oration which ranged between a savage indictment of conditions under the republic and defense of the Fascists, the plans of whom, he stoutly asserted, would be executed only within legal channels.

Sees Bigger Election Gains

The Fascists contemplate a gigantic intellectual awakening of the German people, and the 107 Reichstag seats captured in the last election would be expanded to 250 at the next election, he declared.

He vehemently denied having encouraged attempts to promote disintegration of Reichswehr discipline. He said he was opposed to such procedure as he also was to any other violence in furthering the party's aims.

Fascists who crowded the courtroom cheered their idol and met a stern rebuke from the judge, who reminded the spectators the session was neither a theatrical performance nor a political meeting.

A crowd of several thousand had besieged the venerable Supreme Court Building since 7 A.M., and there were frequent clashes between the police and jubilant Fascists, who either sought entry to the building or an opportunity to cheer their leader. Inside, further police precautions were required to maintain the staid dignity of the court.

Fifteen minutes before the session opened a police official stepped before the barrier which separated the spectators from the bench and admonished the former to observe a becoming decorum, especially when Herr Hitler entered the chamber, because the court otherwise would be compelled to resort to measures "which might be uncomfortable for the spectators." It was observed that this was the first time such precautions had been taken in sessions of the German Supreme Court.

Hitler Cheered on Arrival

Herr Hitler arrived shortly before 9 o'clock and was vociferously cheered as he gave the Fascist salute while walking up the steps into the building. He slipped almost unobserved into one of the seats reserved for witnesses. He was soon called to the witness stand, where the judge explained the nature of his subpoena and informed him he was present only as a witness, that he was expected to make truthful assertions regarding the aims of his party and tell whether it aspired to attain them through legal, constitutional methods. The court incidentally admonished him not to indulge in a lengthy political speech or to seek to defend himself.

After announcing that he had been born at Branau am Inn in Tyrol in 1889, Hitler said he had lost his Austrian citizenship because he had fought in the German Army from 1914 to 1918, when he was gassed and forced to remain in a hospital.

"At the close of the war I clearly recognized that Germany was doomed to internal disintegration as a result of Marxism and internationalism and that even during the war democracy and pacifism had begun their work of destroying the vitality of the German people. I was convinced in 1918 that only a new national movement which would inflame a fanatic national zeal among the German people could effectively combat the Red terror of the Left parties. It was for the purpose of carrying on this work of illumination that the so-called storm divisions of the National Socialist Labor party were organized."

Herr Hitler began a length account which dealt with the expansion of his party and its subsequent part in German political activities. It carried him down to the Munich revolt in 1923 which was staged by him and in which General Ludendorff had an ignominious part.

That outbreak, he contended, was the result of events beyond his control, and the revolt, as such, was contrary to his wishes. He emphasized that the relations between the Federal Government and Bavaria had reached a state of latent war and it was only a question of whether a march on Berlin was to be undertaken under the blue and white colors of Bavaria or by other forces.

Party "Peaceful" Since 1925

Since 1925, he said, his organization had been directed into peaceful channels and sought to conduct itself as a strictly non-military political unit.

At this point in his testimony the judge intervened with an examination which resulted in more emphatic and picturesque declarations by the Fascist leader. He denied responsibility for any illegal currents in the Fascist ranks and said they had no secret aims. Replying to the court's question as to his attitude on the Reichswehr, Herr Hitler said:

"I consider the Reichswehr the most important instrument for the restoration of the German State to the people. I have never undertaken any action inimical to the Reichswehr or tending to disrupt its discipline and morale. As a former soldier, I know only too well the folly and futility of such a policy. We are not foes of the Reichswehr and consider as its enemies and as enemies of the German people all who would seek to undermine it. Such elements in my party who toy with the thought of revolution have been summarily expelled or have voluntarily left it when informed of my attitude."

The judge then reminded Herr Hitler of a statement contained in one of his publications to the effect that "heads would roll in the sand" when his party came into power. It was here that the Fascist leader made his dramatic prediction of the guillotine.

Cries of "Bravo!" echoed through the chamber but they were quickly suppressed with a warning from the bench that the chamber would be cleared if the plaudits were repeated.

Herr Hitler became more informative as he proceeded to answer the questions of the judge with respect to some of the more immediate political aims of the Fascists.

Predicts Majority in Three Years

"With ten years our movement has won a place as the second strongest political party in Germany," Herr Hitler replied. "In three years it will be the strongest party and in the future 35,000,000 of the 40,000,000 voters will support us. That Germany which today hails us into court will some day be glad that our movement was begun. National socialism will convert this defeatist and pacifist State into a nation of iron strength and will.

"To us the old imperial Germany was a State for which we were proud to fight—a State with glorious traditions. The second Reich in which we now are living is predicated on democracy and pacifism. We propose to make the third Reich one of healthy and vigorous nationalism—a State for the people, and shall put an end to the process of national disintegration. We shall accomplish this with legal and constitutional means, and shall mold our state into that form which we deem necessary for it."

Herr Hitler charged that the Reichswehr as it was now constituted did not represent the German people, that it no longer was an expression of the national spirit. The old imperial army, he said, was an exponent of the monarchical idea and urged that the Reichswehr in the new State should also feel itself responsible for the fate of the nation. He denied having sought political ingress into the ranks of the Reichswehr. He said he had prohibited the spread of his publications in the soldiers' barracks.

The judge reminded him that the Italian army made common cause with the Fascisti in October, 1922, and asked whether that would serve as a precedent for the National Socialists.

"The Italian Fascisti," replied Herr Hitler, "did not make a revolution in the sense the German Socialists did in 1918, for Mussolini proceeded in a strictly legal manner; otherwise he could not be the royal Premier today. Any force he applied was not directed against the state, but was aimed at the terror of the street mob."

Denies Violence Since 1923

Herr Hitler then was requested by the court to deny categorically that he at any time since the Munich revolt in 1923 had sought to change the German Constitution by violent means or that he had instructed his subordinates to do so. His denial was emphatic, and that ended his testimony.

Numerous official representatives of the German States attended today's session of the trial because their governments are concerned with the further progress of the National Socialists throughout Germany.

Under-Secretary Zweigert of the Reich's Ministry of the Interior submitted an exhaustive memorial at the conclusion of Herr Hitler's examination which purports to prove that the National Socialist party since its inception has been pursuing revolutionary tactics. Dr. Zweigert testified he possessed evidence proving that Herr Hitler gave the Bavarian Government his word of honor he would not undertake any putsch (revolt) there, despite which he staged his insurrection in 1923. Dr. Zweigert demanded that the government's memorial be made part of the official evidence to offset Herr Hitler's personal testimony, which he declared was insufficient and not binding on the party as a whole.

Counsel for the three accused Reichswehr officers, Lieutenants Scheringer, Ludin and Wendt, objected on the ground that the charges were not supported by documentary evidence. Dr. Zweigert was dismissed as a witness despite the motion of the prosecuting attorney that the memorial be received as evidence. The hearing was adjourned to Friday.

The New York Times reported on reactions in the British press, particularly the view of the fascist-sympathizing owner of the Daily Mail, Lord Rothermere.

From The New York Times, September 25, 1930, p. 24:

ROTHERMERE SEES IT THROUGH

The three young officers on trial at Leipzig for conducting treasonable Fascist propaganda in the Reichswehr have been so outspoken in court that it is hard to say where they will stop. They may yet be moved to leap to their feet and point the contrast between the feeble and timid manner in which the interests of the German Fatherland are being served by President Hindenburg and the magnificent vision and courage brought to the same task by Lord Rothermere. The head of the German Republic, who used to be Commander-in-Chief of the German armies, has just let it be known that the Hitlerite "menace" should not be taken too seriously. In no part of the Reich does he consider the danger of a Fascist coup d'état to exist, and he regards the Bruening Government as fully capable of dealing with the present situation or any situation that may arise. Von Hindenburg thus passes judgment on the merits and importance of the Fascist agitation.

Far otherwise is it with the owner of The London Daily Mail. In the Fascist movement he discerns the promise of the rebirth of the German nation. Herr Hitler will begin by organizing Germany against the corruption of communism. With the nation cleansed and reinvigorated, the Fascist dictatorship will turn its attention to the map of Europe. Austria and Hungary will be brought under the aegis of a Hitlerite federation, Czechoslovakia may find herself "elbowed out of existence overnight," and other drastic revisions will be read into the peace treaties of 1919. This will achieve the double purpose of righting the wrongs of Versailles and setting up a really effective barrier against bolshevism in the heart of Europe. The scheme, of course, is not a perfect one. If the treaty-makers at Versailles, working at leisure, perpetrated so many grave errors, it is not to be expected that Lord Rothermere, writing under great pressure, possibly to catch an edition, should go scot-free. He may thus have overlooked what Hungarian fascism will have to say about being submerged in German fascism. It is only two years since Lord Rothermere took up Hungary's wrongs in a serious way and won so much favor at Budapest as to be mentioned for the vacant throne of St. Stephen. The Magyars now ask what Lord Rothermere means by giving them back their former boundaries only to bring them again under ancient Teuton subjection. And in the original home of fascism, brows may be knit against a triumphant German-Austro-Hungarian fascism that might seek to revive the questions of Tyrol and Fiume.

Yet these are minor considerations by the side of the great Rothermere objective of a new Germany under a military dictator, to save Europe from Bolshevism. What The London Daily Mail scheme overlooks is that such a new Germany cannot set up business without another European war, unavoidably necessary in order to dispose of France's veto on the new Hitlerite Reich. And that the one thing which Europe needs to avert the triumph of bolshevism is another general war must be plain to every competent thinker. Lenin's plans were so badly hurt by the events of 1914-1917 that his successor, Stalin, must be trembling at the thought of another conflagration in capitalist Europe!

Other British newspapers ridiculed the speech. From The New York Times, September 26, 1930:

HITLER'S OUTBURST STIRS BRITISH PRESS

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German Fascist Chief is Called 'Feather-Headed Demagogue'—Hope Put in Hindenburg

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TREATY VIEWS STRESSED

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Daily News Predicts the Use of Emergency Powers if Plan for Coalition Fails

LONDON, Sept. 25 — Viscount Rothermere's enthusiasm for Adolf Hitler and his general softening of heart toward the "young builders of new Germany," which on Wednesday made the British newspaper publisher question the wisdom of insisting upon the last letter of the law as regards war debt payments, has not caught the fancy of the British public.

Far from being regarded now as the savior of Europe, Herr Hitler—after his wild oration in the Leipzig court today—is somewhat unceremoniously called a "feather-headed demagogue" by a section of the British press, and the discovery is made that he still stands where he did, dreaming of executions, revolutions and repudiations.

Concerning Herr Hitler's declaration that there must be two or three more Reichstag elections before his "uprising," The Daily Herald, the organ of the Labor party, suggests that Herr Hitler's ardent followers who are "panting to wade through blood and fire to the establishment of a third Reich" must be disappointed.

"It all sounds, despite the threat that then heads will roll in the sand," says The Daily Herald, "rather like Mr. Balfour pushing off tariff reform or Mr. Baldwin dodging Empire free trade. But what are the heads of the storm battalions, thirsting for the blood of the Jews, profiteers and pacifists going to think of Herr 'Don't Hityetler'?"

The London Times, editorially referring to "Hitler's indiscretion," says his references to peace treaties can hardly be disregarded abroad, and adds: "Granted that his party represents a multitude of discontents rather than a single constructive aim and that its sudden access to strength is a product of temporary economic distress and juvenile impatience, the fact remains that it has just polled over 6,000,000 votes and is the second strongest party in the Reichstag."

The newspaper has no doubt that the Hitler party would gain strength in subsequent elections if they were held soon and is not encouraged by the Leipzig trial in the hope that it will by then be fit to share the responsibility of government.

"Fortunately for Germany and Europe," the paper adds, "the last word still lies with President Hindenburg and his civil and military advisers. They know far better than Hitler and the militants that the economic prosperity and international relations of the Reich depend first and foremost on the confidence of the other nations." The Liberal Daily News and Chronicle regards the situation created by Herr Hitler's outburst as a very difficult one. If a working coalition cannot be framed it considers President Hindenburg may be forced to exercise again the emergency powers put into force last July. "But by this time the situation, if these powers are invoked, will be far graver than it was last July," says the paper.

Days after the testimony, The New York Times published its own editorial entitled "Hitler's Rhetoric." From The New York Times, September 27, 1930:

HITLER'S RHETORIC

If it be true that a watched pot never boils, the menace of Adolf Hitler has been grossly exaggerated. His speech before the Supreme Court at Leipzig was in substance an invitation to the whole world to watch him boil over. There is an innocence almost childish about the detailed fashion in which he set out to be blood-curdling. Almost one expected him to state the precise number of heads that would roll from the guillotine when the Fascists have taken over control of the German nation and inaugurated the day of reckoning. There is something which may be innocence or mere confusion of ideas about his coupling the overthrow of the German Republic, the repudiation of the peace treaties and the mobilization of the guillotine with the legal two-thirds majority required by the Weimar Constitution. People will find it another mark of the ingrained German respect for law and order that even revolution and massacre must pause to make sure that they are not Verboten. These are not the deprecatory half-measures employed by the original practitioners of fascism in Italy or of the Communist variety of fascism in Russia. Mussolini's or Lenin's manifestos were concerned with the programs and principles and not with the dreadful things they would do to their enemies as soon as they got ready.

To dismiss the Hitlerite rhetoric, for all its naïveté, as of no consequence would be wrong. Since 1914 no one will venture to say what dire mischief may not be let loose by infantile irresponsibility. It requires no great talent to get on the nerves of the nations in the new European order and particularly in the present economic discontent. Yet, humanly speaking, the net result of the 6,000,000 votes cast for the Hitlerite platform of dictatorship and war, the net result of that flamboyant speech at Leipzig, should be to bring together the parties and elements in Germany standing for sobriety and the existing political order. These were a majority in the Reichstag election and may be expected to show a more decisive majority if it ever comes to a show-down. Many Germans who registered their economic and social grievances by voting Fascist a fortnight ago will think twice before actually inviting civil war and the return of French troops to German soil.

Wherever in Western Europe fascism has asserted itself successfully it has come as the retort to an experiment in communism, or from fear of a foreign enemy. It is still the doctrine in Italy that Mussolini's march on Rome saved the country from Red domination and from the dark designs of certain foreign powers. In Bavaria and Hungary an actual taste of communism preceded and prepared the way for the rule of the strong hand. These seemingly necessary conditions for flinging one's self into the arms of dictatorship Germany today obviously does not fulfill. She is in no danger from her domestic proletarians. And, despite the talk of Germany's enslavement by the peace treaties the signs of her servitude are fast disappearing.

1969. CBS President Speaks Out Against Agnew's Attacks on Network News

Frank Stanton Denounces Attacks on Press Freedom

"William S. Paley and Dr. Frank Stanton (right) with a color CBS television camera," 1951 (source)

On November 25, 1969, CBS President Frank Stanton gave a speech to the International Radio and Television Society responding to Vice President Spiro Agnew's attacks on the news media after Nixon delivered his "silent majority" speech. Agnew accused reporters on major television networks of bias against the Nixon administration, and attacked television news in general. The text below is adapted from a transcript here.

Speech to the International Radio and Television Society

By FRANK STANTON, CBS News President

November 25, 1969

I am not here to defend broadcast journalism as being beyond all criticism. No one could have worked as long as I have in radio and television without realizing that we are far from perfect in carrying out our enormous responsibilities in broadcast journalism. We have never been satisfied with the job we are doing. We are not satisfied now. It is our continuing hope and our continuing effort to do better. We are concerned with what the press says of us. We are concerned with what our audiences write us. We are concerned with what our affiliates tell us. We do strive for objectivity, although it is not always easy to achieve. While freedom of the press is meaningless without the freedom to be wrong, we do try to be right. And I think that in the vast majority of cases we have succeeded.

Let me turn now to the events of the past few weeks that have commanded the attention of many of us. On November 3, the President of the United States delivered a much-publicized and eagerly awaited speech presenting the Administration's position and plans on the war in Vietnam. That war has been the subject of one of the longest and most fervent public debates in all American history. Good, conscionable and dedicated men and women, from all sections of our society, have earnest and deeply felt differences as to its meaning, its conduct and its prospects. Fundamental questions of rightness and wrongness have disturbed our people as no other issue has in this century.

The President spoke for 32 minutes on all four nationwide television networks, four nationwide radio networks and scores of independent stations. Some 88 million people heard his words as they were conveyed, uninterrupted and in a place and under conditions of his own choosing. Following the President's address, each of the television networks provided comments by professionals analyzing the content of the speech. Participating were experienced newsmen, most of whom have performed similar functions for many years following the live broadcast of special events of outstanding significance. Since the participants were different on the four television networks, the comments of none of them were heard by the same huge audience that heard the President. One of the networks added to the expertise by presenting the views of a distinguished diplomat and public servant, who had held high posts in nine Presidential terms, of both parties, prior to the present Administration. Another presented the comments of two United States senators, who took divergent views of the policy advocated in the speech.

In all this, nothing unprecedented had happened. Such comments have customarily been offered after most significant Presidential appearances—State of the Union, Inaugurals, United Nations addresses, press conferences, for example. And they usually have been more than mere bland recapitulations, which would serve little purpose, and have frequently called attention to emphases, omissions, unexpected matters of substance, long anticipated attitudes, changes of views, methods of advocacy or any other aspect of the speech. Such comments have been offered by enterprising news organizations since the dawn of the modern press and continued into the era of radio and television.

Following the President's speech and following the relatively brief comments made directly after it, the White House was deluged with telegrams and letters approving the President's speech, the White House reported, by an overwhelming margin. Two days later, the Gallup Survey reported that nearly 4 out of every 5 of those who heard it, approved the President's speech and the course that it advocated with regard to Vietnam.

Ten days after the President's speech, the second highest official in the Administration launched an attack on the television networks on the grounds that critical comments on government policy as enunciated in a Presidential address might unduly influence the American people—even though, following such comments, the President received a 77 percent vote of confidence from those who heard him on the issue discussed.

The Vice President also censured television network news for covering events and personalities that are jolting to many of us but that nevertheless document the kind of polarized society—not just here but throughout the world, whether or not there is television and whether it is controlled or free—in which, for better or worse, we are living. It is not a consensus society. It is a questioning, searching society—unsure, groping, running to extremes, abrasive, often violent even in its reactions to the violence of others. Students and faculties are challenging time-honored traditions in the universities. Young clergy are challenging ancient practices and even dogma of the churches. Labor union members are challenging their leaderships. Scientists, artists, businessmen, politicians—all are drawn into the fray. Frequently, because everyone is clamoring for attention, views are set forth in extreme terms.

As we do not propose to leave unreported the voice of the Vice President, we cannot in good conscience leave unreported any other significant voice or happening—whether or not it supports government policy, whether or not it conforms with our own views, whether or not it disturbs the persuasions of any political party or bloc. But no healthy society and no governing authorities worth their salt have to fear the reporting of dissenting or even of hostile voices. What a healthy society and a self-respecting government do have to fear—at the price of their vitality if not of their life—is the suppression of such reporting.

To strengthen the delusion that, as a news medium, television is plunging the nation into collapse and can be deterred only by suppressing criticisms and by either withholding bad news or contriving a formula to balance it with good news, the Vice President's speech was replete with misinformation, inaccuracies and contradictions. To deal adequately with all of these on this occasion would take us through the afternoon, but let me note some of them by way of example, then move on to consider with you the context of the Vice President's speech so far as the actions and statements of other Administration officials are concerned and, finally, make some observations on the significance of this unhappy affair.

The Vice President began his indictment of November 13 with a monstrous contradiction. He asserted flatly that "no medium has a more profound influence over public opinion" than television. And yet he also claimed that the views of America have been very little affected by this "profound influence," when he said, "The views of the majority of this fraternity [i.e., television network news executives and editors] do not—and I repeat, not—represent the views of America." The Vice President can't have it both ways. If the views of the American people show "a great gulf" between how a speech is received by them and how it is treated in a broadcast, obviously the treatment of it has no material effect upon their opinion. Even the premise of the Vice President's claim is proved wrong by the Gallup findings already mentioned.

The Vice President objected to the subjection of the words and policies of the President to "instant analysis and querulous criticism." The analysis, whatever its merits or failings, was hardly instant. Highly informed speculation about the content of the speech had gone on for days and even weeks. Copies were made available at least two hours in advance of the analysis, allowing at least as much time as most morning newspapers had before press time. If a professional reporter could not arrive at some meaningful observations under those circumstances, we would question his competence.

The Vice President took care—and the point should not be lost on us—to remind us that television is "enjoying a monopoly sanctioned and licensed by government." A monopoly, by any definition I know, is the exclusive control of a product or a service by a single entity. Television news is broadcast in this country by four networks, all with different and fiercely competitive managements, producers, editors and reporters, involving hundreds of strongly individualistic people; by a dozen station groups, initiating and producing their own news broadcasts, and by hundreds of stations, producing their own news broadcasts wholly independent and distinct from those of any network they may otherwise be associated with. Moreover, it is estimated that, on the average day, 65 percent more hours of viewing are devoted to station-originated news broadcasts than to network news broadcasts. In addition, there are 6,717 radio stations in this country—the overwhelming majority without network affiliations. All this hardly represents monopolistic control.

The Vice President seems to maintain that the First Amendment applies differently to NBC from what it does to The New York Times, because NBC's audience is bigger and because television has more impact. That the First Amendment is quantitative in its applicability is a chilling innovation from a responsible officer of the government. By this standard, the Times is less entitled to the protection of the Bill of Rights than the Des Moines Register, with a third of its circulation, and twice as entitled to it as the New York Daily News, which has double the Times' circulation. As for the impact of the television medium, it may be true that combined picture and voice give television a special force. On the other hand, print can be reread, it can be lingered over, it can be spread around, it can be consulted over and over again. Should, on the grounds of these advantages over television, the print media have less freedom?

The Vice President asked how many "marches and demonstrations" there would be if there were no television cameras. An elementary textbook in American history might prove instructive. There was no television to record the demonstrations against slavery; demonstrations against the Mexican War; demonstrations against the Civil War draft; demonstrations for women's suffrage; demonstrations for Prohibition; demonstrations for the League of Nations; demonstrations against child labor; demonstrations for economic justice. That there would be no disturbing news except for television is a canard as dangerous as it is egregious.

Now let us turn to the crucial issue raised by the Vice President.

Despite his complaints about how and what we report, the Vice President protested that he was not advocating censorship. He found it necessary, a week later, to repeat his protest three times in one paragraph. It is far more shocking to me that the utterances of the second-ranking official of the United States government require such repeated assurances that he had in mind no violation of the Constitution than it is comforting to have them at all. Of course, neither he nor any of his associates are advocating censorship—which would never survive judicial scrutiny. But it does not take overt censorship to cripple the free flow of ideas. Was the Vice President's reference to television's being "sanctioned and licensed by government" accidental and devoid of any point or meaning? Was his suggestion that "it is time that the networks were made [emphasis added] more responsive to the views of the nation" merely sloppy semantics and devoid of any notion of coercion?

Perhaps the Vice President, in his November 20 follow-up speech, was not referring to government action, but only to a dialogue among citizens when he said, "When they [network commentators and some gentlemen of The New York Times] go beyond fair comment and criticism they will be called upon to defend their statements and their positions just as we must defend ours. And when their criticism becomes excessive or unjust, we shall invite them down from their ivory towers to enjoy the rough and tumble of public debate." Who, in those sentences, will do the calling of these men to defend themselves, and before whom? Who is the "we" who shall do the inviting? And by whose standards will the limits of "fair comment" and "just criticism" be judged and who shall be the judges?

The ominous character of the Vice President's attack derives directly from the fact that it is made upon the journalism of a medium licensed by the government of which he is a high-ranking officer. This is a new relationship in government-press relations. From George Washington on, every Administration has had disputes with the press, but the First Amendment assured the press that such disputes were between equals, with the press beyond the reach of the government. This all-important fact of the licensing power of life and death over the broadcast press brings an implicit threat to a government official's attacks on it, whether or not that is the intention and whether or not the official says he is speaking only as an individual.

But the Vice President does not seem to have been walking a lonely path in the direction of suppression and harassment:

Herbert G. Klein, the Administration's Director of Communications, revealed that, on November 4, the day after the President's speech, calls from White House offices went out to broadcast stations asking whether editorials were planned and, in Mr. Klein's words, "to ask them what they would say in their editorial comment."

In Washington, D. C., television stations were called by a member of the Subversive Activities Control Board, Paul O'Neill, requesting logs of news coverage devoted to support of and in opposition to the Administration's Vietnam policy. His wife, a Dade County official of the Republican Party, who specified her husband's official position, made the same request of Miami, Florida stations.

On November 4, the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, in unprecedented calls to the presidents of the three broadcasting companies with national television networks, requested transcripts of the remarks of their reporters and others who had commented on the speech, saying there had been complaints, the source of which he failed to specify—although two weeks later on sober second thought, he seemed to reverse himself when he signed a letter adopted by the full Commission finding that the comments made on the networks after the speech in no way violated its doctrine of fairness.

A special counsel to the President, Clark R. Mollenhoff, said that the speech "was developed by various White House aides," adding "if you are asking me, 'does it reflect the Administration's views,' the evidence is abundant that it does." The President's press secretary, Ronald Ziegler, agreed that a White House special assistant, Patrick J. Buchanan, "very well could have contributed some thoughts to the speech."

Mr. Klein, on November 16, said, "I think that any time any industry—and I include newspapers very thoroughly in this, as well as the networks—if you look at the problems you have today and you fail to continue to examine them, you do invite the government to come in."

In my judgment, the whole tone, the whole content and the whole pattern of this government intrusion into the substance and methods of the broadcast press, and indeed of all journalism, have the gravest implications. Because a Federally-licensed medium is involved, no more serious episode has occurred in government-press relationships since the dark days in the fumbling infancy of this republic when the ill-fated Alien and Sedition Acts forbade criticism of the government and its policies on pain of exile or imprisonment.

In the context of this intimidation, self-serving disavowals of censorship, no matter how often repeated, are meaningless. Reprisals no less damaging to the media and no less dangerous to our fundamental freedoms than censorship are readily available to the government—economic, legal and psychological. Nor is their actual employment necessary to achieve their ends; to have them dangling like swords over the media can do harm even more irreparable than overt action. If these threats implicit in the developments of the past week are not openly recognized, unequivocally denounced and firmly resisted, freedom of communications in this country will suffer a setback that will not be limited to checking the freedom of television or to barring critical comment on government policy. It will precipitate an erosion that will inevitably destroy the most powerful safeguard of a free society—free, unhampered and unharassed news media.

This does not have to be the resolute intention of any person or group, any party or government. We can wander unintentionally—all of us—into a lethal trap if we let our dissatisfaction with the handling of specific issues, which are variable, and of events, which are transitory, compromise our adherence to basic principles, which are constant. No permanent freedom was ever wisely exchanged for temporary popularity, for the popularity can be gone with changing political or social cycles and the freedom can be regained, if ever, only at fearful cost. And this is a truth that should be remembered by those who demand that our freedoms be preserved only when they agree with us, but who have been eager to restrict them whenever they disagree with us. You cannot side with restrictions or with bullying or with recriminations when they support your views and then oppose them when they differ, for they will rise up and haunt you long after your cause is lost or won.

The issue here is simple. Dwight D. Eisenhower said, "I believe the United States is strong enough to expose to the world its differing viewpoints. . . ." His successor, John F. Kennedy, said, "The men who create power make an indispensable contribution to the nation's greatness, but the men who question power make a contribution just as indispensable."

Criticism is an essential ingredient in that mix. It is central, not tangential, to a free society. It is always a free society's strength and often its salvation. Television itself is not and should not be immune to such criticism. As a matter of fact, it is the most criticized medium in the history of communications. Newspapers, magazines, academic groups, learned societies—who wouldn't dream of criticizing each other—criticize us every single day. Everyone has free access to what we do, and everyone sees us do it. We are not unaccountable. We are not clandestine. We have no end product that is not seen and judged by everyone. But such open criticism is a far cry from sharp reminders from high official quarters that we are licensed or that if we don't examine ourselves, we in common with other media "invite" the government to move in.

The troubled pages of this country's history are writ dark with the death of liberty in those nations where the first fatal symptom of political decay was an effort to control the news media. Seldom has it been called censorship. Seldom is the word used except in denials. Always it has been "guidelines" in the name of national unity. And we might well ponder the fate of the unhappy roll of nations that had no regard for their freedoms or took them for granted or held them lightly.

As we meet here, 39 nations in the world have a controlled press or a press that wavers uncertainly between control and freedom. This melancholy statistic might well be borne in mind by those of our own countrymen who, as the Vice President descends upon one part of the country to attack the journalists of another part, are moved by their temporary irritations to applaud their own ensnarement. In his speech of November 13, the Vice President turned to Learned Hand to support a proposition that would have been total anathema to the great judge. Let me, in conclusion, invoke Hand in more revealing words:

"Our democracy rests upon the assumption that, set free, the common man can manage his own fate; that errors will cancel each other by open discussion; that the interests of each when unguided from above, will not diverge too radically from the interests of all. . . ."

I appreciate having had this opportunity to speak to you today in what all thoughtful people must regard as a critical period in the life of a free society and of the free communications without which it cannot exist.

1943. "Harvest of Death"

War Correspondents Return to Ukraine

Newsweek cover from September 20, 1943: "Little Man, What Now?"

From Newsweek, September 20, 1943, pp. 35-36, 38:

Harvest of Death: Behind the Lines in Russia's Reconquered Villages

The almost incredible grimness of the war in Russia was never better illustrated than in this notable dispatch from Bill Downs, Newsweek and CBS correspondent in Moscow, telling of his second trip to the front.

The big twin-engined Douglas transport took off from the Moscow airdrome with thirteen British and American correspondents and four escorting Russian officials. We were flying back into the summer toward the Ukraine—welcome enough after the first chilly fall breezes now turning the leaves of Moscow's trees. We stopped for a brief landing in the ruined city of Voronezh, where Russian and German troops had sat and looked at each other for more than a year until the Nazis were finally kicked out last January. Then we picked up four Yaks as an escort for the rest of the journey. These four fighters, piloted by Russian women, didn't make the men in the party feel any more masculine.

We landed on what had once been a wheatfield at the town of Valuiki. This had been one of the main bases for Italian troops in Russia until they were completely surrounded by the Red Army last winter. Valuiki was hardly damaged at all, as the Fascists had had very little if any chance.

Jeeps

While we were sitting in the hot sun waiting for our transportation, there was an ominous roar. Eight jeeps stormed over a hill, running in line like baby partridges. Bringing up the rear was a ¾-ton Dodge ammunition carrier that followed us thereafter.

In the late afternoon we headed into the setting sun. Each jeep had a driver with a Tommy gun at his side. Dave Nichol of The Chicago Daily News shared my car. We called our driver Junior because when we pronounced his real name, it didn't come out so good. We soon found out that Junior was a frustrated fighter pilot. That would have been all right if only he hadn't tried to loop the damn thing.

Driving along a dusty Ukrainian road over the rolling steppe past white-washed, thatch-roofed Ukrainian villages was one of the most beautifully peaceful experiences I have ever had. The war was a million miles away as we went through mile after mile of wheat and rye plantings and fields of sunflowers as yellow as butter. We stopped and picked the ripened heads of these flowers and for the rest of the trip everyone ate sunflower seeds in the best Ukrainian manner.

But as we drove into the sun, we also drove back into the war. By nightfall the villages had become more and more damaged, with army traffic heavier and army control points more frequent. As night fell, we turned on the convoy lights—dull slits visible only a dozen feet away. We had been warned we were driving through mined fields—that the roads had been de-mined but that the fields had not. Once in a while Junior, wandering off the road, would turn on the driving lights. Twice when this happened sentries fired warning shots into the air.

At a farm near a crossroads where the railroad cut the highway, the cars stopped for butter and eggs. Mikhail Vasseff, assistant chief of the foreign-press department, walked down the line and warned the drivers of danger. Meanwhile, there was a roar of German bombers overhead, but they couldn't be seen against the starry sky.

Death

The jeeps started out again. Vasseff was in the second jeep, and the United Press correspondent Henry Shapiro was in the third accompanied by two British correspondents. Nichol and I were in the fourth. Just as the cars went over the railroad right-of-way, there was a muffled explosion. On the road ahead a deep orange and red flash bloomed like a giant poppy and shot about 20 feet into the air. The concussion flattened the brim of my hat. The cars stopped, and everything was silent for a few seconds while parts of a jeep began falling to the ground.

Then there were a few groans—deep shuddering ones. Vasseff's jeep somehow had run over an anti-tank mine. The groans came from Maj. A. A. Volkoff, the representative of the Soviet General Staff, and Viktor Kozhemiako, the chief censor of the press department. Volkoff's legs had been blown off, and Kozhemiako's legs and back were lacerated. Vasseff's body was not found until the next morning because it had been blown 60 feet away. The major and the censor died shortly after being taken to a nearby base hospital.

The jeep was blown a dozen feet off the road, turned over, and was almost torn in two. The driver escaped miraculously with only a wound in the back of his head. It was a freak mine that somehow hadn't gone off although hundreds of cars had driven over the spot on the road throughout the day.

The next day at dawn there was some question as to whether or not to continue to the front—the explosions and deaths had shaken us all. Our surviving escort, Lt. Col. Studyonoff of Moscow, got in touch with headquarters in the capital, and it was decided that since the Steppe Front headquarters were expecting us, we would continue. All night long we tried to wrap ourselves around the jeeps in such a way as to get a few hours' sleep, but our efforts were mostly a failure because of the German and Russian planes flying overhead.

Harvest

On the approaches to Belgorod we came to a village in the region where the Red Army made its initial break-through. Every house in these villages was burned or blown up. The trees were shattered and blasted. In the fields and alongside the road were the hulks of tanks—both Russian and German—which were burned, blown up, and filled with holes.

The battlefield had been pretty well cleaned up, and the people were beginning to come back. Every peasant stove had a small group of women around it digging in the ruins for salvage. In some places there had been attempts at reconstruction, but for the most part the people were now sleeping in haystacks, dugouts, or on top of the ground.

Right now there was a big rush to get in as much of the crops as possible. The lack of labor, machinery, and sometimes even scythes made this a primitive job. The method mostly used was that of the old scythe and cradle, dating back to the times when women flailed the grain and gathered the wheat by winnowing the chaff in the wind, although some of the women were even picking the wheat by hand. This scene, with the kerchiefed and barefooted women using these ancient methods of harvest, made this part of the Ukraine appear almost biblical—except for those ruined villages and the blasted tanks of the new Philistines.

Belgorod, which had changed hands four times, looked much as could be expected. Not a single major building was intact. I have seen so much damage in so many ruined cities, towns, and villages here in Russia that only the strongest adjectives could be used to describe this ruin.

We drove to the town of Liptzy, 15 miles north of Kharkov, where Gen. Ivan Konneff's staff had established our headquarters in the peasant cottages. The first thing the army did was to take us to a portable shower tent in a field near a small stream. It was the army version of the famous Russian baths. The tent was about 50 feet square, and inside there were a dozen shower taps of steaming, running water, which was heated in a portable boiler on a truck. That hot shower was worth all the bumps I had suffered in the jeep.

Then we were taken to breakfast which included steak, vodka, tomatoes, sardines, potatoes, rice, and more vodka. There was not a single reference throughout the trip to the tragedy that befell the second jeep. It was strictly the army attitude toward death at the front. That evening Col. Ivan Vorobieff came to our headquarters and outlined the situation at the front.

The following day I still felt dead even after a night's sleep on a comfortable mattress stuffed with straw. However, no one can remain sleepy after a breakfast of sardines and tomatoes washed down with vodka followed by a hamburger steak and potatoes.

"Extremity: Here is what German propaganda has come to. This ghastly line-up is supposed to show the bodies of women killed in an Allied air raid on Cologne. It probably is not faked, but it demonstrates the lengths to which the Nazis have gone in building up the horror aspects of the Allied bombing offensive against the Reich" (p. 38)

Mines

A colonel from an engineers corps who had fought in the battle for Kharkov took us for a tour of the city's circular defenses. Their basis was a huge anti-tank ditch extending 30 kilometers around the vital sectors of the city. However, the Germans depended mostly on a system of trenches emanating like ganglions from deep pillboxes and shelters. Over them timber was laid and then the wood was covered with earth.

There was bitter fighting on the northern approaches to the city, where you could see that Russian mortars had covered every foot of the ground. As in the last war, mortars are still the best weapon against trench defenses. On the southern defense sector the Germans had built their defenses through a canning factory by barricading the basement windows.

Our colonel also turned out to be an expert on German mines. He said there were some ten different types of German anti-personnel mines and about five different anti-tank types. He showed us the newest type of each category.

The new German anti-personnel mine looks like an oversized potato masher and is made of concrete. Painted green and stuck upright in clumps of bushes or high grass, it is hard to detect. It is discharged by a trip wire.

The Nazi anti-tank mine must have been devised by someone with a personality as nasty as Hitler's. It is made of steel about a foot in diameter and 4 inches thick. Besides an ordinary detonator on top, it also includes one on the side and bottom. Thus the detecting sapper must handle it like a cracked egg; he can't shift it or lift it without having it go to pieces in his hands.

Next, we loaded up the jeeps again and headed southwest over the muddiest road in Russia. Ukrainian gumbo is a special kind of mud which looks like tar and glue. This was in the Udi River valley with low rolling hills on each side. It was typical of the Russian collective-farm country, but it was nearly all uncultivated.

There was a definite change in the atmosphere. We saw more soldiers, more transport, and greater alertness. The village ruins looked fresher, and we passed an occasional loaded ambulance. We drove between mine and bomb craters for 10 miles on this road, which was remarkably solid considering its condition.

Then we began to see an occasional wrecked tank. Alongside an orchard we could see dozens of them off to the left among the young apple trees. They looked like broken toys. But a gust of wind put reality into the scene. It was putrid with the smell of death, and from then on we breathed through our mouths. This tank battle had been fought three days before. Not all the bodies had been buried.

Garden

We turned off the road directly southward and came to what had once been a collective farm in the village of Korotich. There were only a dozen houses with fifteen or twenty outbuildings, but it was completely dead. The sole inhabitants were two women, two chickens, and one German who had died after crawling some 25 feet from his tank.

Korotich was surrounded by a large truck garden with several acres of fully grown cabbages, tomatoes, beets, and potatoes. Most of this garden had been ruined by a battle between more than 100 Russian tanks and a similar number of German ones. The Russians knocked out 60 Nazi machines in this engagement, and forced the Germans, who were concentrated for a large-scale assault aimed at recapturing Kharkov, into retreating.

There is not much use in trying to describe a tank battle unless one sees it personally, but this one must have been terrific. The Germans used Tigers as well as medium types. They also employed oversized Ferdinand mobile guns. Down in the cabbage patch there was on wrecked Ferdinand and one Tiger almost side by side. Their crews were buried among the cabbages. The smell of rotting bodies turned a few of us pale, but no one lost his breakfast—although there were a few bad moments when we had to chase away two chickens pecking at a German's body.

Kharkov

Until I started to examine details, Kharkov looked about the same as when I saw it five months ago. Last March sometimes at least one floor remained in some buildings, while there was occasionally even a building intact. When the Germans worked over it the second time, they missed nothing. The entire city will have to be rebuilt. Sixty per cent of the residences have been destroyed. There is an atrocity commission now investigating the Nazi war crimes of the second occupation. The civilians told us the usual stories: 300 wounded of the Red Army were burned to death in the local hospital and another 400 by the occupying SS troops.

That is what history looks like when you are shown it firsthand here in Russia. This war and this front will cover many chapters. Every paragraph will reflect the skill and courage of this 1943 Red Army and people who are defeating the 1939 Nazi Germans.