September 11, 1943
For the introduction:
Curt addresses a Prologue for NSB members and German sympathizers, expressing his concern that they side with the enemy on the “internal front” inside Holland. Bloch indulges in his own propaganda, referring to the Nazi sanctioned “front care action” cabarets, with artists like Carter (Werner Steven, 1880–1950) or Paulus de Ruiter (Jacques van Tol, 1897–1969) as “shallow nonsense,” whereas his own magazines are the unvarnished truth, free from Goebbels’ censorship. He acknowledges that the content of the OWC will scandalize an NSB audience, but the shock to the system might be just what they need “from your mistake to be healed.”
In the NAF Song, Curt Bloch describes the failure of the establishment of the Dutch Labor Front (NAF) as decreed by the Nazi Reich Commissioner Arthur Seyß-Inquart (1892-1946) on April 30, 1942. Supposedly the aim of the NAF is to organize for better conditions for workers, but it’s actually political maneuver as all other unions are prohibited. The fascists miscalculate, projecting the increase in membership will create the impression of a groundswell of support for the NSB. The lyrics taunt Hendrik Jan Woudenberg (1891–1967), the disgraced “labor leader,” who has few constituents.
In the poem The Subscriber, Bloch looks at the current situation from the perspective of a reader of “Volk en Vaderland.” The weekly newspaper of the National Socialist Movement in the Netherlands (NSB), which had a circulation of 200,000 copies in 1943 and was published by NSB leader Anton Mussert (1894–1946). According to Bloch, in years past, the newspaper had held a good deal of promise “one believed in the writing.” However, things had developed differently than claimed, and the negative influence of fascism will lead the subscriber down the road to ruin.
In the fourth contribution, Curt Bloch composes the lyrics for a song that a WA Man sings on the Eastern Front. The abbreviation WA stands for Wolfsangel, a swastika-like heraldic symbol and NSB identification mark. A Dutch fighter in the service of the Germans is freezing cold in Russia and regrets having followed Anton Mussert’s flags. He realizes that he has been seduced. And if the WA man were to die now, it would be with a curse on Wolfsangel, “Houzee” (the NSB salute), and the National Socialist Movement.
The fifth poem, Yes Yes Commissioner, is a song to be sung the voice of Anton Mussert whose National Socialist Movement in the Netherlands acted as a “willing tool” of the Nazi Reich Commissioner Seyß-Inquart. Mussert’s betrayal of the Dutch people will earn their wrath. The traitorous “dark army” of the NSB is now at the end of its strength; Mussert now needed the Commissioner’s help in seeking asylum because he fears his actions will be punished.
The poem NSB members expresses the disappointment of the Dutch who welcomed the German occupation, expecting it would improve their lifestyle and bring them up to par with Germany as they had experienced on their trips abroad to their neighboring country. They gladly became members of the National Socialist Movement, but the reality is that the “Moffen” (a derogatory term for Germans, translated in the English poems as “Krauts”) have taken everything and they’re following the Germans to their doom. They’ve been misled and should realize their “helmsman is death.”
The seventh poem happily reports on a new service that’s improving the situation all over the Netherlands. The lyrics describe a hit team which eliminates “traitors and spies in the service of the swastika.” Curt Bloch specifically names NSB Secretary-General Hermannus Reijdon as a target the left-wing resistance group CS-6 assassinated in February 1943. Another, Dutch politician Folkert Evert Posthuma, was killed by resistance fighters in his home in June of the same year.
In the Front Care Finale, Bloch briefly justifies the vengeful tone of his poems. Reichs Commissionar Artur Seyss-Inquart, the “Moffen,” and the NSB have stifled his freedom and intended to cause his enormous suffering. In the last line Bloch addresses the Dutch Nazi directly, saying, “if you’re scared, that’s my pleasure.”
