JF Ptak Science Books Post 2889
First of all I mean no disrespect to the author/s of this work in discussing the pamphlet's appearance, or those who read it with interest, or to those who studied it, or to those who may have lived it and who may have paid the price for doing so. I thought that this small work was remarkable in content and appearance. and in the way it sounds...the book's physical appearance seems to me to add to its history and story.
First of all this effort was written by someone associated with the Communist Party of Austria no later than 1944 and is titled Auf zum Kampf Freiheit und Wiedergeburt Osterreuchs, or The Fight for Freedom and Rebirth in Austria (or Let's Fight for Austrian Freedom and Rebirth). This means that this was a highly incendiary work for an Austrian to possess in their Nazi-dominated country. The Nazis absorbed Austria ("annexed" is the word found more often describing the Nazi takeover and obliteration of Austria as a sovereign nation) Austria in March 1938 and were of course massively anti-Communist, except of course for the Communists in the Soviet Union, who Hitler externally tolerated in the public lull of his bitter hatred between the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and the beginning of Operation Barbarossa on 22 June 1941, a period where he was able to use the Soviet Communists to his advantage before attacking and killing millions of Russians.
Auf zum Kampf is a manifesto of the Austrian Communist Party written during a meeting/party congress in 1944. The copy I am working with, the copy with so much presence, is (I expect) a much-reduced photographic copy of the original that was made for the U.S. Office of Strategic Services, the OSS, the organization that morphed into the CIA. It is 5"x 4" and 23 pages long. It is staple bound in homemade cardboard for use in the OSS library. (It even has a borrower's card in the rear pocket with three names, none of whom I could identify.) The images were printed on a very thin photographic paper, and have a very exaggerated "papery" sound to them, even with the slightest touch...they have the feel of a thin vellum. It really does feel like an unusual document.
Back to the document's contents--it is very strong stuff. The original seems to have been printed by KPO members in exile in Moscow (according to Andreas Hilger, Mike Schmeitzner, Clemens Vollnhals (editors), Sowjetisierung oder Neutralität?: Optionen sowjetischer Besatzungspolitik... section 3.3) and before June 1944, as one person borrowed this copy in that month. When I checked WorldCat (the worldwide cataloging tool used by librarians and showing the holdings of thousands of libraries and hundreds of millions of books) I found there were two listings: one for 1944, where only two copies of this work were located (both National Library of Germany), and a second for 1945, which showed only six copies (LSE, IISE (Netherlands), Oxford, British Library, Leeds, and Stanford)--this edition was shown being printed in London and associated the name "Hans Winterburg" as the author. (I don't know if this was supposed to be the renowned composer, or another Winterburg. I can't determine this from where I sit.) The 1945 edition was illustrated and 15pp long--this copy is 23pp with no illustrations.
The Manifesto declares that Austrians must rise up against Hitler to secure a "free, independent democratic Austria", which was "the first free country that fell to Hitler's aggression" and that "it must be freed". There is a call to other states to rise up and resist, otherwise the same fate awaits them. (Perhaps the authors were a little behind the timeline here, operating in Moscow, perhaps removed from good information.) "The war of freedom against Hitler's Germans is the greatest test for all peoples. A people that really wants to be free, that respects itself and claims the respect of other peoples, can never wait for freedom as a gift from the outside, but has to give up to fight for its liberation with all its might." the Manifesto reads, and continues on for resistance and for preparing for what comes after Hitler was removed.
And so. The document continues to outline so solid steps on how to proceed to resurrect the country, and what the consitution might look like--the min message was to bring all parties together for the defeat of Germany and the rebirth of Austria.
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