Gj

Ehrenburg Criticised

By G. ALEXANDROV o

- RASNAYA ZVEZDA on April 1, 1945, Sane an

Pe arcie by Ilya Ehrenburg,

“Saongh,” Ebrenbure in

@his article deals with the current situation in Germany and
,) with the reasons for the con- :

— 1elp

‘centration of the German army.
lon the Soviet-German front

"when at the same time the Ger-

man armed forces in the West
lare being weakened.

- Anybody who reads PEhren
‘ourg’s article carefully cannot
noting that his main
(theses are ill-considered and
S.bviously mistaken. The reader
eannot agree either with his
leseription of Germany as “a
piuge gane” or with his explan- _

ition of the withdrawal of Ger__

(aan-fascist troops from the
’Western Front and the con-

" entration of all forces of the

|7HRENBURG assures

/-serman army in the Mast.

@
his
4-readers that all Germans

re the same and they will all
‘© held responsible in equal

easure for the crimes of the’

litlerites. It is stated in the
rticle “Hnough” that there is
2 huge gang which is seatter-
'ig-and fleeing now that the
"me -has come to answer for
Pteir deeds:” It is also~stat-
| 1 that in Germany “they are
»l on the run, all scurrying
nd trampling on one another
'1 their haste to get to the
'wiss border.’
|There is no difficulty in
Fiowing that these assurances
|: hrenbure do not corres-
'ond with the facts. Everyone
mow convinced, and this is
irticularly borne out by the
perience of the past few

5 | onths that different Germans

oe oe
> ° support fascism,

@ he

@ © German

owl in different wavs and be
-ve differently-

Some of them with dolt-
_sh obstinacy continue with
/very ‘means in their power
the fas-
(ist party, the fascist state
md the Hitler clique Other

) refer to refrain from active

| truggle on behalf of Hit-
wisi, and temporize or sur-
ender. Some Germans zea-
ously support fascism and
Hitler system, while
thers, disillusioned with the
yar and haying lost hope of
| ictory, have turned cold to-
-ard the “Fuehrer’s”. wild
nd crazy plans.

: HIS may be said of the Ger-

man army as well as of the
ae population. The corrod-
= acid has eaten into the body
Phe German-fascist army. It
not surprising that while
“me German officers may be
chting for the cannibal sys-

‘mm, others throw bombs at Hit-

© and his clique, or are try-
»2 to persuade the Germans to
'y down their arms.
@ What is now happening in
fe German army and among
population was
1 aso foreseen by Stalin. As

3? back as May, 1942, Stalin

“ote: “The war has brought
"ave disillusionments, the loss
' millions of lives, starvation

e poverty to the German peo-

' The end ofthe war is not
Dens, but the reserves of
e-'many’s manpower are giv
& out, oil and raw material

“board in any storm.

stock are giving out. The real-
ization that Germany’s defeat
is Inevitable is growing on the
German people. It is becom-
ine inereasingly clear to the
German people that the only
way eut of the present situa-
tion is to liberate Germany
from the adventurist clique of
Hitle: and Goering.”

The days of fascist intoxica-
tion in: Germany are passing.
The fools in Germany who are
ready. to! Sacrifice their heads
uncomplainingly for Hitler and
his criminal aims are Prowine

fewer and fewer. German
newspapers are compelled
every day to report facts
which are indicative of the

rapid disintegration | of the rear
ot the German-fascist armies.

The other day, for example,
the fascist newspaper Front
und Heimat zoe that a large
number of “oponents in prin-
ciple” have arisen in Germany.
And although ‘the. Gestapo has
appealed to all “real Germans”
to institute a “free hunt”
against all such opponents in
principle,” this is becoming
less and less within the power
of the ramified machinery of
the Gestapo.

It is therefore clear that ac-
tually there is no united Ger-
many and that the Germans are
not all behaving the same
way.

As we know, the Hitlerites,
trying to save their skins and
their criminal system as long
as possible, are importunately
striving to show; in defiance of
the facts, that the entire Ger-
man people are solidly rallied
around them. The purpose of
this clumsy demagogy is quite
clear. The fascist state in
Germany today has exhausted
every real opportunity of hold-
ing its own in the World War

it unleashed. The Hitlerites are-

spasmodically clinging to
eyery slightest chance of pro-
longing the existence of the
bloodthirsty and cannibal fas-
cist system.

HEY are therefore untiring-

ly hammering at one point,
namely, that Germany’s adver-
Saries, the armies of the Unit-
ed Nations, are determined to
exterminate the German people
and that therefore all of them
must rise up and fight for the
preservation of Germany.
Goebbels, one of the chieftains
of the piratical Hitler gang, re-
cently wrote, “‘Participation in
the war in one way or another
is the obligation of all inhabi-
tants of Germany without ex—
ception. . .” :

Four days ago the German
radio broadeast an article by
the same Goebbels which was

‘printed in the fascist newspaper

Das Reich,! and im which he
states, “We must stick out this
battle in complete national

unity and we must rally our
ranks and see it through. We
must not throw ourselves over-
‘ That is
the commandment of the hour.”

The central theme of the hul-
labaloo raised by the fascist
press and radio is an appeal to
remain united in these critical
times for fascist Germany.

The question arises, why in
the sixth year of war do the
Hitlerites shriek so frantically
about the necessity for the Ger-
man people remaining united
in the face of the danger threat-
ening the fascist state? The
reason 18 very simple. The Hit-
lerites are trying to tie up the
fate of the fascist clique, and
hope to draw upon certain addi-_
tional forces with which to con-
tinue the criminal war. to delay
the inevitable end, to win time
for military, political and diplo-
matie maneouvers. and to post-
pone the hour of the freedom-

From Poland and from Rus-
sia the world had heard of the
brutal cruelties of the savage
Nazis in their death camps, but

what the American armies
found in the prison and conéen-
tration camps they overran

first seemed to bring the full
horror home to America. U.S.
soldiers were starved in some
camps, civilians killed in others.
like this.

loving nations’ just trial of the
bloodstained Nazi

However, as the facts elo-

guently show, the frantic ap-
peals of the fascist press are
of little help. The Hitler state
is growing weaker from day to
day, the ranks of the Nazi Par-
ty are thinning, and of course
there can be no question of any
unity between the entire popu-
lation of Germany and the rul-
ing fascist clique. It is per-
fectly obvious that the Hitler-
ites would have had no need to
appeal to Germany for unity
and would not have worried
about this unity if the fascist
order were not violently burst-
ing at the seams and if there
were not so many individuals

eriminals.

in Germany anxious to “throw .

themselves overboard”: in other
words, jump off the fascist
wagon.

Such are the facts.

And from this it is char why
Ehrenburge is mistaken when.
im his article he represents
the population of Germany as
an integral whole.

Hhrenburg writes in his ar-
ticles that there is no Germany,
but only “a huge gang.” If we
admitted that Ehrenbure is

NAY 19,

1945 — Page 11

right, then we should have to
agree that the whole population

of Germany must share the fate

of the Hitler clique.

There is no need to say
that Ehrenburge in this case
dose not reflect Soviet pub-
lic opinion. In fulfilling its
great liberation mission, the
Red Army is fighting for the
destruction of Hitler’s army,

. Hitler’s state and Hitler’s
government, but its purpose
never was, nor is it now, to
exterminate the German peo-
ple. That would be stupid

" and senseless.

When the Hitlerites falsify
the position of our troops and
our state and ery that the Red
Army is out to destroy all Ger-
mans to a man, that is-under—
standable. The .xuling fascist
clique is trying to exploit this
lying statement= ins ordér to
rouse the whéle ‘German popu-
lation to fight the Allied Ar-
mies and the Red Army and
thereby prolong the existence
of the criminal and rotten fas-
cist system. But when genu-
ime anti-fascists, active partici-
pants in the struggle against
Hitler Germany, express such
views, it is strange and incom-
prehensible. The Soviet peo-

ple never did identify the Ger-

man population »with the erim-
inal fascist clique: who are rul-
ing Germany, Stalin said:
it would be ridiculous to iden-
tify Hitler’s elique with the

German people and the German |

state. History shows that Hitlers
come and go, but the German
people and the German state re-
main.’

In complete harmony with this
Soviet viewpoint are the deci-
sions of the Crimea Conference,
where it is stated: “It is not our
purpose to destroy the people of
Germany, but only when Nazism
and militarism have been .extir-
pated, will there be hope for a
decent life for the German peo-
ple, and a place for them in the
community of nations.”

It is clear from this that the
lives of Germans who take up
the fight against Hitler or who
behave loyally toward the Allied
Armies are not threatened. Of
course, those of them who are
fighting and continue to fight
the Red Army and the Armies of
our Allies in order to preserve
the fascist regime, will receive
no mercy.

In his article “Hnough,? Eh-
renburge truthfully and power-
fully describes the bloody deeds
of the Germans on our sacred
soil, but unfortunately FEhren-
burg drew wrong conclusions
from the inecontrovertable facts.
He says that the “insolent Gér-
mans maintain an attitude to-
ward the Americans as if* they
were some neutral power.” and
he attributes the fierce resist-
ance of the Germans on the
Soviet-German front to their
fear of the coming reckoning for
their crimes on Soviet territory.

There is no denying that the
Germans guilty of crimes on our
territory are afraid of the reck-
oning all the more now that
retribution is near. Nor can it
be denied that this fact tends to
stiffen the resistance of those
who are guilty of crimes against
Soviet citizens. ~ We know that
nowhere else have the Hitlerites
performed such butcheries, no-

fear

“But -

where else did they so display
their cannibal nature as in the
occupied regions of the USSR.
Our people are bitter. Perhaps
the world has never before -wit-
nessed such hatred as the hatred
of our Soviet people for the fas-
eist enslavers.
: .

OWEVER, it would be over

simplifying matters and
naive to attribute the present
distribution of German armed
forces between the Western
and Hastern Fronts only to the
and panic of the Nazi
eriminals. The reasons why the
Germans have stripped their
Western. Front and are con-
tinuing to mass troops on the
Soviet-German front lie deeper
than the susceptibility of oe

'Hitlerites to fear.

Lenin at one time when an-—
alyzine the policies of differ-
ent states in’ time of war, as
well as the character and causes
of changes in such policy, had
some very important remarks
to make on this score. He said
that “every war is inseparably
bound up with the political sys-
tem from which it springs.”
And the political system of Hit-
ler Germany determines the
nature of the war waged by.
the Hitler clique and its Dole
icy during the war.

The experience of 12 years’
policy of the Hitlerites in Ger-
many and outside Germany
shows that intricue, demagory
and political unscrupulousness
have always been an essential
substance of the policy of the
Hitlerites, both in time of war
and in time of peace. This, for
example, is what Hitler wrote
regarding’ the principal feature
of his policy: “polities are a
game in which every form of
cunning is permissible and in
which the rules vary with the
skill of the players.” Hitler’s
clique cannot be denied a cer-
tain consistency, for over 10
years the peoples of all coun-
tries haye witnessed one act of
perfidy on the part of fascist
Germany after another, one in-
trvigue after another.

To judge by all signs, the
Hitlerites have been hatching
a new intrgue lately. Tieuten.
ant General Krappe: Command-
er of the German 10th Army
Corps, who was taken prisoner,
stated in February that the
German command had a broad
plan for transferring armed
forces to the Soviet-German
front. And indeed in the past
two and one-half months the
German command has trans-
ferred forces to Soviet- German
front; 44 divisions from the
Western Front, the central re-
gions of Germany, Norway and
northern Italy. By transferring
such large forces to the Soviet-
German front the German army
command left the Western Front
without any effective defence.

What is the aim of the German
command in distributine its
forces between the West and
East in this way? Gan it be at-
tributed to the fear and terror
of the German command of hav—
ing to answer for the bloody
erimes perpetrated by the Ger
man armies on Soviet territory ?

It would be truer to say that
at the present stage of the war

Continued on Page 13
See EHRENBURG