JF Ptak Science Books Quick Post
The quick post this morning centers on design and the presentation of information–and it comes from a very uncommon and unsavory source. The pamphlet is by Rudolf Kasper, Sudetendeutsche Wirtschaftsnot! : Der Niedergang der sudetendeutschen.Wirtschaft seine Ursachen und der neue Weg zu Arbeit, Freiheit und Brot which on the cover of the publication becomes Volk in Not. It was published in 1932 by DNSAP (German National Socialist Workers’ Party), which was an anti-Communist, anti-Capitalist, anti-Semitic, and other anti- things, and written by the German Nationalist Kasper, who after the Czech sell-out and invasion of 1938 became a Nazi and ultimately a Waffen SS. Well, penultimately he became a prisoner of the Soviets and then ultimately dead at their hands, somehow, in 1947, under unknown conditions. (As Mr. Vonnegut would say, “so it goes”.) The pamphlet is an appeal to the Sudeten Germans, offering an explanation for their failure at teh hands of the Czechs as well as a broad determination of how to fix things for the future, fixing the unemployment situation (there and so far as I can tell worldwide) for people to have a chance at “Work, Freedom, and Bread” (“zu Arbeit, Freiheit und Brot”). Ah, yes. Once the Nazis took control in Czechoslovakia, the DNSAP disappeared, outlawed–of course Kasper didn’t and simply moved on to his new Nazisness.
I’m posting about this because the pamphlet just doesn’t appear anywhere–there is only one copy of it located in libraries worldwide (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek) according to WorldCat/OCLC–and I just wanted to surface the thing.
The montage cover (8″x 5″):
And the display of the unemployed (2″x 2.5″):
(“You are Suffering Famine and Distress!”)
So, there you have it. There’s a lot of unpleasant stuff in this pamphlet that would be fervent feed for the developing downfall of Czechoslovakia six years hence, though we don’t need to get into that where–as I said, I just wanted to surface this pamphlet and bring some notice to its existence.