April 22, 1944
Introduction to the content
Their new hope reports that Russian army units are advancing unchecked and threatening to overwhelm the Germans. But the weekly NSB newspaper Volk en Vaderland, sees new hope in the newspaper “Narodiny”: Russian anti-Bolshevik partisans are fighting against Stalin’s troops. Curt Bloch believes that for the Nazis, this news is “like a shot of morphine.”
In English government crisis, Curt Bloch documents a “drama in newspaper clippings.” Nazi propaganda celebrates turmoil in the British government in March and April 1944. If Anthony Eden departs, will Winston Churchill be replaced? Bloch quotes the propaganda and concludes that the “news” is just another distraction, as the British leaders remain in their positions.
With the question “Do you remember?”, Curt Bloch addresses the Germans directly. They allowed themselves to be enthralled by Adolf Hitler as “God-sent” and, under the Nazi regime, indulged in a true frenzy of joy, cheering, and laughing. But they ignored the fact that at the same time many other peoples were crying and “much happiness was trampled.” Full of fear for the future, the Germans now wish they had never met Hitler.
In Ça va bien … (French for “It’s going well”) Curt Bloch reviews current developments in Hungary. While the Nazi press insists that the situation there is stable at the end of March 1944, Budapest is subjected to heavy air raids by the U.S. Air Force just a few days later. The city has to be evacuated. “Yes indeed,” Bloch concludes cynically, “things are going excellently there.”
Curt Bloch comments on the New German Frugality with many newspaper clippings that demonstrate how people need to ration their supplies, due to the war.
