July 29, 1944
Introduction to the content
In Germany Puts On a Theater Play Bloch reacts to an item claiming that Germans go about their business, navigating the mountains of rubble in what’s left of their cities. And the theaters continue their programs. Bloch taunts this “the show must go on” attitude. The facade can’t hide that the people are desperate, weary of war. Bloch calls on the Germans to “Stop the show!”
In their New V Campaign, he Nazis boasted of the invention of the V1 and V2, innovative German rockets designed through impressive German engineering. The prefix “V” stood for “Vergeltung” which means “Revenge.” Nazi propaganda claimed these weapons would be game changing, turning the tide to win the war despite the very effective Allied offensive. The V1 and 2s actually have failed. Will there be Vs 3, 4, 5, 6? Bloch wonders. How many more Vs will there be? Bloch merrily suspects that V stands for “Verloren” (Losing!) instead.
France Wakes Up! responds to two items about the far-right French politician Philippe Henriot (1889–1944), Minister for Information and Propaganda of the Vichy regime in January of 1944 until his assassination on June 28 of that year. The execution of the “French Goebbels” by a Résistance commando inspired Curt Bloch to write the poem, confident the “fascist clan,” would soon meet their death. “France has awakened,” and now every traitor will be punished.
With A Brief Reply to XXX, Bloch addresses Martin van Nierop, a member of the NSB (National Socialist Movement) and editor-in-chief of the Twentsch Nieuwsblad, whose byline, a triple X, earns the belittling nickname “Driekruis.” Bloch responds incredulously that Driekruis wishes he would choke on his coffee (there is none!) and condemns the Nazi barbarism Driekruis supports, which is starving the Dutch people and should drown in his own ink.
In Driekruis, I Am So Sorry … Bloch wants to get in the last word to van Nierop who personally responded in the newspaper, that it’s unfortunate Bloch’s views are “banal” or otherwise he’d consider publishing him occasionally. Bloch counters entirely sarcastically about how much he regrets not measuring up.
In a fan-boy moment, Bloch imagines an exclusive Interview With Stalin in which Bloch’s pseudonym Cornelis Breedenbeek asks the Russian leader how the offensive is going and Stalin just can’t share enough! Sounding like an A-list star promoting an exciting new project, Stalin describes the war’s progress and claims that Hitler has exhausted himself in the East, and the Russian troops are advancing “in a continuous sprint.” Finland will also soon be in trouble, he says. But it’s a teaser. He refuses to tell an exact date for the end of the war.
