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FORMER NAZIS CONSULS IN U.S., LATIN AMERICA

‘Ribbentrop Gang running

A NAZI diplomat who handed
over German Jews to the Ges-
tapo is scheduled to become .West
German consul in Panama; the
West German consul general in
San Francisco was one of Ribben-
trop’s specialists in “Jewish poli-
cy”; leading members of West
German legations in South Ameri-
can countries were formerly SS
men.

These are some of the new facts
about the degree of Nazi infiltra-
tion into the West German foreign
ministry which have just been
brought to light.

~ Exposure about the “renazifi-
cation” of the West German dip-
lomatic service led earlier this year
to ‘the establishment of a parlia-
mentary commission which was
supposed to “purge” the service.
Net result of the commission’s
work was that the records of ex-

actly 21 of the 542 leading offi-

cials in the foreign ministry were
examined. Two of the most ob-
viously bloodstained of the 21
were fired, and two others were
encouraged to retire on full pen-
sion.

In a debate on the commission’s
report in the West German par-
liament on October 22 Chancellor
Adenauer admitted that 66 per-
cent of all West German diplo-
mats were former Nazis. “We
had not enough experienced dip-
lomats available to be able to do
without them,” he said.

He added a threat against news-
papers which dared to expose the
conditions prevailing in the for-
eign nginistry: “The criticism in
the press has done more damage
to the reputation of the federal
republic overseas than the policy
of the foreign ministry,” he said.
“J shall see to it in future that
legal proceedings are taken with
more frequency against publica-
tions which insult the foreign min-
istry.”

Here are some details of the
“experienced ‘experts” who are
making the foreign policy and
staffing the diplomatic service of
the Bonn foreign ministry.

Dr. Georg Korth, West German
consul-elect in Panama. In 1939
Dr. Korth was Nazi consul in Jo-
hannesburg, South Africa. At the
beginning of the year a 21-Vear
old German emigrant, Helmut
Breiding, visited him and asked if
he, as a half-Jew, could visit Ger-
many without risk for six weeks.

Korth assured him repeatedly that

he could travel without risk, and
on May 22, 1939, Breiding arriv-
ed in Kassel in time to celebrate
his mother’s 60th birthday. Two
days later he was arrested by the
Gestapo. Breiding recalled the as-

surances he had. received from
Consul Korth, and was thereupon
shown a letter from Korth to the
Gestapo asking that Breiding be
arrested a ssoon as he reached
Germany. Breiding died this year
as a result of mistreatment dur-
ing the six years he was impris-
oned at Dachau.

Dr. Gerhard Stahlberg, West
German consul general in San
Francisco. Stahlberg, a former
employee of Ribbentrop’s foreign
ministry. distinguished himself

BY JACK PHILLIPS

“fear and _ hatred.

during the war by working out an.
exhaustive memorandum on_ the
methods to be used by the Na-
tional Socialist state in prevailing
upon its puppet gfates in Europe
to adopt the full Nazi anti-Jewish
policy.

Dr. Henning Thomsen, couwnsel-
lor in the West German embassy,
Lima, Peru. Dr, Thomsen left
West Germany in September to
take up his post in Peru, although

West German diplomacy

liberal West German newspapers —
had drawn attention to the fact
that he was a former member of
the SS.

Dr. Fritz Kuebler, first-secre-
tary elect of the West German
embassy, La Paz, Bolivia. During
the Nazi era Dr. Kuebler was the
first organizer of the Nazi “Bund”
in Bolivia, an association of re-
actionary German settlers from
which the Nazi secret service re-
cruited many of its agents in
South America.

Pocket book publishers pervert
Zola’s works--but forget legend

Ree all over the world have
paid tribute this year to the
memory of Emil Zola, the great
French novelist. Zola* died 50
years ago, on September 28, 1902.

Zola was more than
writer. He ‘was a _ passionate

democrat, a crusader for justice

and a foe of tyranny.

Bantam Books of New York has
chosen this year to publish, in
pocket book form, one of his
earlieest books, Theresa. The
cover shows a beautiful woman.
She is dressed in (a petticoat and
revealing bolero. One hand is out-
stretched, as if calling some one to
her. Behind her, through the open
Coorway, stands a bed. Almost
touching the fingers of her out-
stretched hand, the following sub-
title: “The powerful French novel
of a woman driven by deSire.”

Thus, Zola is placed on every
bookstand in Canada, dressed in a
lurid jacket, to compete for a few
pennies with hucksters like Mickey

_ Spillane and Erskine Caldwell.

There is nothing here to tell the
reader that this book was written
early in Zola’s career. That he
wrote then as a naturalist, faith-
fully recording the evils of so-
ciety, without using the critical
approach of his later years.

Theresa tells the story of the
frustration of a - warm-blooded
young woman. She was raised as
an orphan and married to a man
she desired, a weakling who was
hardly a man to his wife. The hus-
band is murdered by the lovers,
who soon marry to enjoy their
love without hindrance. But the
feeling of guilt destroys their love
and reduces their relationship to
On the very
brink of madness, they commit
suicide, destroyed by the ghost of
the man they murdered.

9, MEN OF COQDW pF:

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Bry

a great _

All this is told with stark real-
ism, deep emotion and excellent
characterization. The book is thus
an exposure of middle-class hyp-
ocrisy in France, where the mar-
riage of convenience is buttressed
by adultery and prostitution.

It is no accident that Theresa
is advertised on the front cover
as a novel by the same author as
Nana. Because Nana is a story
of a French prostitute who be-
came the notorious mistress of
rich men and aristocrats. ~

Nana was also published as a
cheap pocket book. But the read-
er was not told that this was only
one book of a remarkable series
of twenty novels, entitled Rougon-
Macquart.
novels was to expose the corrup-

‘tion of French society under Na-

polcon the Third. The idea be-
hind Nana was to show that the
depravity of the ruling classes was
the natural outcome of their cor-
rupt practices in business, politics
and government. In this book,
Zola unsparingly exposes the dirty
linen of the adventurers gathered
around Napoleon, the aristocrats,
the stock jobbers and their hang-
ers-on.

e .

It was the trial of Captain Al-
fred Dreyfus that brought out-the
true stature of Zola. When the
trial first began, Zola took little
interest.

But soon, his trained mind made
him suspect that the charges
against Dreyfus were false. He
studied the .case and became con-
vinced that Dreyfus, who was of
Jewish origin, was an innocent
man. Once he was convicted, Zola
threw himself into the fight to
save Dreyfus, without reservation,
in order to clear the name of
France.

Dreyfus was convicted and sent

The purpose of these .

to solitary confinement on Devil’s
Island, but Zola did not cease in
his efforts to free him. He soon
wrote and published a _ fighting
pamphlet, appropriately named I
Accuse. In this masterpiece, he
proved the innocence of Dreyfus
and turned the spotlight on those
men and those institutions who
were the guilty ones.

The reactionaries of France
greeted this pamphlet with. howls
of rage and indignation. “Down
with Zola! Down with the traitor!
Sold to the Jews!’ Stones were
thrown through his windows. His
books were banned. -A mob burn-
ed him in effigy and threw him
into the river. ‘

Finally, Zola was arrested for
libel, charged with defaming the
characters of the very men reé-
sponsible for the frame-up of
Dreyfus.

Zola was found guilty and had
to pay a heavy fine. His fight to
free Dreyfus ended in temporary
defeat. His health was undermin-
ed, his life savings were gone and
he was deserted by his friends.
Zola was a destitute writer, aloné
and despised. But he did not give
up in despair, or turn his coat.
Finally the labors of Zola and all
those who stood by Dreyfus weré
crowned by success. Dreyfus won
a newetrial, was declared innocent
‘and set free.

e Y
Today, in New York, where the
office of Bantam Books is located,
there is a man in the tradition of
Zola, a writer named Howard Fast.

It isn’t so long ago that his
book Last Frontier, was circulat-
ing as a pocket book. But the
masters of the printed word with-
drew it from circulation. Wher
Fast tried to publish Spartacus
through any one of the big pub-
lishing houses, he failed. There
was a boycott against him. So he
published: it himself, -under ‘very
difficult circumstances. This if
what happens to a man who trie
to follow in the footsteps of 4
Zola, in the United States of AM
erica, the “freest land in thé
world.” Fast, like Zola, has bee?
menaced by “the furious faces”
and “the clenched fists.” But he
has not hesitated to expose col
ruption, tyranny and _ injustice
Neither has he hesitated to speak
out boldly for the Rosenbergs, vic*
tims of the cold war hysteria in %
frame-up that compares with that
of Dreyfus. If Zola was alive tO”
day, in the U.S., he too would bé
boycotted by the lords of thé
printed word.

But Zola has been dead fifty
years ,and his works are among
the classics of literature. To th®
publishers of cheap pocket books
this means no author’s fees 2.
no royalties. So the publishers °
“spicy romance” and “spine-ting
ling murder” arbitrarily choos
what they want from his works
and dress it up in a lurid jacket:

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — DECEMBER 12, 1952 — PAGE 4