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Hella Siegmund-Schultze in 1945

By Margrit Pittman

P LEIPZIG, GDR
rofessor Dr. Hella Brock handed
me a worn paperback Armed Services
edition of The Seventh Cross. ‘‘This is
the souvenir Louis Diskin gave me in
1945. It had not been published here.
and the first time I read it was in Eng-
lish in this edition. The Seventh Cross
is a novel about the anti-fascist strug-
gle in Germany by Anna Seghers, pub-
ished in the United States in the late
30s and also produced as a motion pic-
ture.

Professor Brock is a self-assured
woman in her late 50s, a professor of
musicology, author of a widely used
text-book on music education, a
former deputy to the German Demo-
cratic Republic’s parliament and an
active participant in a number of so-
cial and professional organizations.
Diskin, now president of International
Publishers, had been an important in-
fluence on her while he was temporar-
ily in charge of the U.S. occupation
force in the town of Wegeleben in the
Harz Mountains in the spring of 1945.
Diskin was then a first lieutenant hav-
ing fought from Omaha Beach to the
Elba.

She had heard of Diskin’s recent
visit to the GDR and attempted to see
him, but he had to return home before
this could be arranged’and so he asked
me to talk to her.

What Professor Brock unfolded is
the story of an American occupation
officer who was serious about the
anti-Nazi coalition and about the need
to free Germany and the world of fasc-
ism. Though his tenure was short he
was able to make a start on denazifica-
tion in the area under his command
and incidentally to impress his young
German interpreter deeply with the
need to approach the country’s recon-

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—SEPTEMBER 22, 1978—Page 6

struction in an organized and collec-
tive manner.

Hella Siegmund-Schultze, as Pro-
fessor Brock was then called, was the
daughter of two anti-fascist teachers.
“‘My parents were forced out of their
profession because of their anti-fascist

- views,”’ she says. ‘‘They eked out a liv-

ing by private tutoring and boarding
students.”

“In April 1945 I was living with an
aunt in the Harz Mountains. I had
studied English and music. On April 11
a U.S. army jeep came to the village
and stopped in front of my aunt’s
house. They said they had heard that I
could speak English and the U.S. army
officer in Wegeleben wanted to speak

to me. That was Diskin. He was dark

and handsome and held himself very
straight but he was not at all like a
conquerer.

“‘He asked me all kinds of search-
‘ing questions about my life, my family

Louis Diskin, now president of interna-
tional Publishers

Dr. Brock (third from left) in Great Britain visits Karl Marx’s grave

and my views and then he employed
me as his interpreter.

“Those were exciting times. We
were wide awake and anxious to end
the nightmare of war and help build a
better life. I was far from being a
communist and knew very little about
them. I knew that I was opposed to
fascism but did not have a clear idea
about what should come next.”’

The most important immediate
problem was hunger, Professor Brock
says, and Diskin went to work on that.

He ordered all of the well-to-do
peasants to deliver grain for distribu-
tion to the population. At the time there
were many evacuees, repatriates
from Eastern Europe, war prisoners

and forced laborers in Wegeleben, a_

town with a population of 10,000.
“The Nazis had left freight cars full
of foodstuff behind,’’ she ‘says. ‘“‘He
could easily have confiscated them but
instead he ordered them distributed
among the population, especially the
prisoners and homeless ones. He sim-

- ply saw to it that the distribution was
supervised by reliable people so that -

there would not be any stampede and
that the prisoners and forced laborers
would get a decent share. He had ap-
pointed the best people he could find to
form a sort of city council and he put

‘them in charge of the activities.

“He was much concerned with re-
education. He had all the Nazi school
books brought to his command post.
There were some people who wanted
to burn them, but he said there had

been enough book burning. He simply

wanted them out of circulation.

“He then interviewed all teachers
and fired all but those who showed
some democratic sentiments, who
seemed willing to change the educa-
tional system.”
Diskin was in Wegeleben only from

‘April 11 to mid-June. On May 8 the

Nazis had signed the unconditional

surrender and in June, in accordance -

with allied agreements, the U.S. occu-

pation force withdrew from that area
which was then briefly occupied by the
British and on July first was taken
over by the Red Army.

“When I heard that Diskin was
leaving I was very sad and a little con-
cerned about the future. I did not know

Russian and though I did not have the. 4

hysterical notions about the Red Army ~
_ which the Nazis were spreading, I was

a little concerned about what the fu-
ture would bring. After all, I knew
about the crimes (the Nazis) commit-

.ted in their country. I’ll never forget

what Diskin told me. He said ‘don’t

- worry, they (the Red Army) will do it

better and make life beautiful for
everyone.”.”’

She found that Diskin was right.
The Red Army reopened the schools
and made great efforts in reviving the

culture. At the end of 1945 she applied —

for membership in the Social Demo-
cratic Party ‘‘they were for unity of
the working class,’”’ and-she was ac-
cepted in January 1946, three months
before the unification of Social Demo-
crats and Communists into the
Socialist Unity Party.

Professor Brock started teaching
English and became a staff member of
the Workers’ and Peasants’ faculty, an
affirmative action program to qualify
working class youth for universities.

Later she qualified for music edu-
cation in which she has an advanced

- degree. While teaching at Greifswald

University she was elected to the Vol-
kskammer, the GDR parliament. Dur-

ing her term she became a member of ~

the first GDR parliamentary delega-
tion to Great Britain and had an oppor-
tunity to address parliament there.

Later she transferred to Kar] Marx
Univesity in Leipzig where she still
teaches and is active in many profes-
sional groups.

“The encounter with Diskin had a |

very important influence on my think-
ing,’’ she says. ‘I am glad that I met

‘his type of American at the time.”

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