JF Ptak Science Books Quick Post
This incredible map appeared in the May 19, 1945 issue of the Kolnischer Kurier, It was published in Koln, in German, for Germans, but was printed and distributed as news and propaganda by the advancing U.S. Army. It is remarkable that at the tail end of the final offensive there were such forward-thinking people planning in terms like this, dealing with a newly-conquered enemy and trying to organize the thoughts of the population.
[The first twelve issues of the Kolnischer Kurier were published by the Americans; the rest of the newspaper (issues 13-62, 1945-6) were published by the British.]
The map leaves little to the imagination except for what total defeat might bring:
[Kolnischer Kurier map, 19 May 1945, via Veri Josef Weber http://veriweber.de/der-pulverdampf-hat-sich-verzogen/]
The newspaper was extraordinarily, reporting on the Tötungsanstalt Hadamar/Hadamar Euthenasia Center in 1945, the Bergen-Belsen trials at Luneburg in September 1945, the Nuremberg trials (November 1945-September 1946), and much else. Deserving a separate mention is a piece by Thomas Mann on the German concentration camps published nearly on the day of German surrender--Mann makes explicit, personal claims that all Germans are responsible for the atrocities of the concentration camps. (Mann would make a radio address on May 8th exactly on the German soul and the concentration camps, and culpability, and blame, and the morality of the war.
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