December 12, 1944
Introduction to the content
In The Difference, Curt Bloch responds to a newspaper article by Maarten van Nierop (1912–1979), a member of the NSB (National Socialist Movement) and editor-in-chief of the Twentsch Nieuwsblad. Nierop frequently signed his contributions with three crosses, which is why Bloch refers to him as “Driekruis.” Nierop calls on Dutch men to provide labor for the German forces – an opportunity to “make a contribution to the defense of our territory against the all-destroying enemy.” After all, Nierop reports, the Nazis are not forcing Dutch men into military service like the American General “Eisenhower does in the territories he occupies.” Curt Bloch does not agree with the journalist: the Netherlands will not dig its own grave but will fight alongside the British forces. “Because the Brit will liberate us.”
German propaganda regularly contains derogatory language about the British forces, portraying them as hesitant, “not soldier-like,” weakened, and in need of rest: “The Brit has no talent …” But this is not true: “The British soldier is truly not so bad,” Curt Bloch writes. Apparently, the Brits are not as decadent as the Nazi press claims.
In The New Mayor, Curt Bloch reports that NSB member Wouter Jager is now the mayor of Enschede. Jager was already a leader in the Dutch Nazi movement, and Bloch notes that, while the Nazi manhunters are in charge, a mayor named Jager (Hunter) is appropriate. But he assumes that the new mayor will soon be buried. (Instead, Wouter Jager was sentenced to prison after the war and conditionally released on 1 October 1948.)
In The German National Emblem, Curt Bloch describes Nazi iconography: a swastika surrounded by an oak wreath and an eagle with an open beak atop the wreath. He associates this emblem with torture, terror, suffering, and mass murder. It is a “symbol of German lowness.”
In Song of the Air Convoys, Curt Bloch celebrates the drone of Allied bombers. He includes an English-language illustration to show the number and roles of the planes’ crews. Bloch says the “song of the engines” is a delight; it is music to his ears. When the planes return from their missions, they sound lighter because they have dropped their payloads, so he knows that their bombs have attacked Hitler’s Germany. This gives him hope that a new freedom will rise from the ruins: “From the rubble, from the shards, Nazi tyranny must die.”
