JF Ptak Science Books   Post 2619

This is another in this blog’s reprint series of rare and semi-non-existent pamphlets.  Although this pamphlet has a somewhat lazy title it does get the point of its contents across, which was mostly how to recognize and challenge Fifth Column work by the Nazis.  It is only 15 pages long but there’s actually a lot of good common sense on what to do with propaganda–it is really just an invitation to think for yourself.  I couldn’t find any reference to this online, and there are no copies of the work found in WorldCat/OCLC.  Here it is, in full:  Download Reprint series– You Can Outwit Goebbels:

Download Reprint series– You Can Outwit Goebbels:

JF Ptak Science Books  Post 2620

This rare report asserts and outlines all manner of Nazi war crimes committed against the Soviet Union to April 1943 and issues an official call to keep track of every horror in the form of the  Extraordinary State Commission to Investigate Nazi Atrocities via a decree of the Supreme Soviet. At this point the German attack against the U.S.S.R. was nearly two years old and involved the majority of the German army; in April 1943 nearly 4 million German soldiers were waging war against about 10,000,000 Soviets in the largest military campaign in history, ultimately costing the lives of 10 million Soviets and 5 million Germans, with millions more on each side being MIA and captured–staggering numbers.In the midst of all of this the Germans flayed the Soviet Army, people, and land, and the Russians were very highly decided that now that the turning of the offensive was in sight (now just a few months after the great victory at Stalingrad),that they would absolutely not forget anything that the Germans did there.  This fragile pamphlet was one announcement of this intention.

I’ve attached the full pamphlet, below, a text-only reproduction from the Internet Archive–I would reproduce my copy with the full flavor of the original except that it might not survive being opened and folded flat over the scanner.  

Some of the prominent statements in the pamphlet include the murder of the civilian population as well as their enslavement. Lastly, at the end of this grim spectacle, there is a section naming the German officers responsible for the mass of killing and torture. 

• “the murder of peaceful citizens and the violation of defenceless citizens, women, children and old folk by the
  invaders, and also of facts relating to the exportation of Soviet people into German slavery”
  
• “destroying monuments of art and culture of the plundering valuable artistic and historical documents,
  demolishing buildings and stealing the valuable property of various religious bodies.”
• “losses inflicted by the marauding and plundering activities of the German Fascist invaders on collective farms, co-operatives, trade union and other social organisations by the plunder and destruction of buildings, devices and equipment designed for production and cultural purposes, by the plunder or destruction of stores of raw and other materials, products and goods, agricultural crops, forests, fruit, vegetables, etc., and other collective farm and co-operative property”
• “…torturing and murdering peaceful citizens. They are plundering wholesale the population of towns and villages and exporting the personal property of Soviet citizens, accumulated by their honest labour, to Germany, together with collective and State farm property.”

And this incredible statement of truth:

• “the German-Fascist Army mercilessly destroys Soviet towns and villages, engages in violence, torture and the tormenting and murder of non-combatant citizens as well as of Soviet war prisoners. History has never before witnessed such mass extermination of human beings as that perpetrated by the German-Fascist invaders. ” There is a full section on the “Murder and Torture of Soviet Civilians”.

There’s much more if you give the work a full reading.  

[Source: Internet Archive, https://archive.org/stream/investigationofn00unse/investigationofn00unse_djvu.txt]

JF Ptak Science Books  Post 2621

The Spanish Secret (Underground) Newspaper “Reconquest of Spain”, which is being Printed in Madrid, Has Arrived in Algiers and Publishes an Appeal of the Supreme Council of the National Union, Which Has Just been Received in Mexico, is a rare offset publication–five leaves long and approximately 1500 words–was which published in  December 1943, and which seems to be a general call-to-arms to overthrow the Spanish right-wing leader Francisco Franco (still dead after all of these years). The Spanish Civil war was overwhelmingly over by 1939, though there was still considerable resistance to Franco–much of that at this point (1943) not in Spain. The Spanish government for their part were busy trying to keep their non-neutral neutrality at an optimum price and profit, selling material to the Nazis, and holding out for a more-beneficial payout to themselves from Hitler for joining the Axis outright, which never did happen.    The publication refers to an underground secret newspaper called the “reconquest of Spain”, which I guess would be simply called the Reconquista, which in recently history would have referred to the fight against Franco from 1936 to 1939, and also ()in the deeper past) the 700-year-long fight to establish a Christian kingdom in Spain free of Islamic occupation (ca. 700-1500). Unfortunately my knowledge of Spain during WWII regarding the Republican fight is extremely limited, and so I can’t say anything further about the newspaper–I’m not even sure if this publication below is a reprint of the text of the newspaper (which it seems to be, perhaps) or not.  In any event, here’s some samples from the publication:

[Provenance: from the estate of Alexander Uhl,  Associated Press reporter in Spain during the Revolution. WorldCat/OCLC locates 0 copies.]