Krónika, 1948 (5. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

1948-04-15 / 4. szám

1948 április

'KRÓN1K A”

9-IK OLDAL’

and Hungarian monarchy, meaning, actually, the utterly damnable pulverization of a strategically, politically, economically and culturally well-integrated and highly developed statehood of progressive people, 56 million strong, who were members, the outpost and self-sacrificing defenders, for many centuries, of Western Christian Civilization: was deliberately plotted and ordered in London.

“As I have shown, Northcliffe, on taking control of the Ministry of Propaganda, first concentrated on breaking up Austria and Hungary... Lord Northcliffe wasted no time in the practice... of vilifying his opponents. . . his first step was to concentrate on the threadbare patchwork quilt which was the Austrian and Hungarian monarchy.’’ (PROPAGANDA IN THE NEXT WAR. by Captain Sidney Rogerson, London, 1938)

Lord Northcliffe was “hunting for the weak link in the enemy’s moral and political chain ’ and, lo and behold, he discovered that Austria and Hungary have nationalities! The fact, that the British Empire had overwhelmingly more nationalities and that the population of the United States is composed of 60 or more nationalities, apparently did not bother the conscience or logic of His Lordship. Now that Lord Northcliffe has found “nationalities’’ as the “weakest link" in the moral and political chain of Austria and Hungary, he “pressed every single method of propaganda into service to ensure that the promise of deliverance duly reached every simple Slovak soldier.” (op. cit. p. 17) ’)

The duly proclaimed real aim of the propaganda mill was also “to establish a world peace that shall preclude the resumption of war.’’

If one reads Captain Rogerson’s quoted book, published only 10 years ago, and compares the propaganda mill s high sounding promise about "making the world safe for democracy’’ and about World War I being the “war to end all wars,” with the dismal performance concerning world democracy and prevention of World War II, the resulting conclusion is despairing about the value of secret propaganda mills. Also, in the light of the events in India, Egypt, the Middle East, Palestine, Indo-China and Indonesia — all those events occurring AFTER the landlocked territory of the Austrian and Hungarian monarchy was broken up — what empire fits the Northcliffean "threadbare patchwork quilt" label best than any colonial empire? Why wax indignant about the evil of own make? How can the “simple Slovak soldier” help Britain now? He was "delivered from oppression and persecution” by Lord Northcliffe, was’nt he?

After the breaking up of Austria and Hungary was "billed” and the high sounding slogans, phrases about "deliverance from persecution and cruel oppression", about "humanity” and High Heaven were coined and the high policy matters of propaganda discussed, worked out and fixed by Vansittart, "the brains of the Empire," J. Balfour, Northcliffe, Seton-Watson, Wickham Steed, Prof. Allison Phillips. W. F. Bailey, F. Wrench and possibly other "fellow travellers amongst Slav peoples,’’ the slight matter of financing the operation of the vast propaganda machine became the next problem because even the most destructive, cynical hate-propaganda is very costly: it takes hundreds of millions of dollars, the dollars to be delivered by the United States, of course. "Hundreds of millions of pounds have gone into building up Britain’s secret services, but the returns from America have already been in billions of dollars.” (Dreiser: America is Worth Saving.)

As a rule, the sure key which will fit the U. S. Treasury is an attractive shibboleth, political or economical, which will arouse mass emotion and the missionary spirit in the American public. “A devil must be created to arouse our moral purpose.’’ (John Foster Dulles). Shibboleths, alas, no matter how cleverly coined, settle nothing in the long run. The fatal tragedy of "Homo Sapiens’’ is reflected in the chilling fact, that the rate of creation over destruction is steadily diminishing with the mounting of war cost. Indeed, how little humanity can show for its titanic efforts — mostly lost motions — and for the gigantic depletion, within a few centuries, of the soil and mineral wealth, the products of millions of years.

Presently again, and very wisely, we are building up Europe after we permitted its destruction. Political sagacity does not mean the wrecking of the structure we are trying to rebuild.

The man-made propaganda art prepared their present fate in London, which within mere 30 years caught up with the unfortunate Serbian, Croatian, Slovenian, Slovakian, Czech. Magyar and Austrian people, is the direct consequence of the reckless and irresponsible dismemberment of Austrian and Hungarian monarchy, in the framework of which they lived for seven centuries in a much more favorable conditions than they are living today after several “deliverances" and "liberations.’’

"E PLURIBUS UNUM,” reads the motto on every American coin. It expresses a heartwarming, true American policy. But. to be sure, the break-up of the 700-year-old economic, political and cultural unity of the Austrian and Hungarian monarchy thoroughly contradicts our basic American policy: E Pluribus Unum.

There are other concepts of spiritual and moral greatness about our United States. The United States is the true friend of humanity; its highest aims are world harmony, lasting peace and democracy. Yet any destructive political agitator whose scheme is the very contradiction of every American political, economic and moral principle will find an open U. S. Treasury, if he has a shibboleth about democracy, humanity and High Heaven which will strike the right

note in American hearts. Only the wording of the idea must be pleasing, its substance or applicability is immaterial. Any local investigation of the political agitator’s grandiloquent scheme, in order to find out its implications, magnitude and real consequences in the political, strategic, economic, moral and cultural life of the country and the whole community of the people, is lightly dismissed with a casual wave of the hand. Congress votes the millions and billions or delegates the power to allocate the funds and the wrecking is launched under some high sounding but just as highly misleading label.

"After World War I., this government lent Czechoslovakia nearly 180 million dollars, of which about 165 millions remain unpaid today. After Czechoslovakia was liberated from the nazi yoke in World War II., the country got $246,145,000 in UNRRA relief; $503,000 in lendlease; Export-Import bank loans of $21, 797, 518; and a property credit of 50 millions from the state department to purchase surplus goverment-owned property, of which 7 millions have been utilized.

“Czechoslovakia has received nearly 500 million dollars in American aid in the last 30 years and in the light of the most recent developments, this was indeed ‘operation rathole' for our taxpayers.” (From the speech by Rep. Vursell in the House of Representatives, on Feb. 26, 1948, delivered on the assistance given Czechoslovakia by the United States.)

"When he (Stalin) pulled the iron curtain over Czechoslovakia, he pulled it down over 2 billions of our money and equipment.” (From the speech by Rep. Vursell in the House of Representatives, on March 25, 1948, delivered on the Marshall Plan.)”

"OPERATION RATHOLE FOR OUR TAXPAYERS.” became the aid given to Czechoslovakia? This aid and how many others? Some one can say: “I planned it that way."

“Operation rathole for our American taxpayers”. .. what a terrific jolt this must be to the Vansittart art of supreme secret propaganda in which the conscript taxpayer must be given a "moral stake” in the war, a "moral responsibility’’ to “put down evil!”

"The artist in propaganda paints in the minds of people, with selected and slightly distorted stories, the pictures he has conceived in order to affect emotions and to bring about the action desired. The technique has been so perfect that we do not detect the art. It seems to as reality.

"Sir Robert Vansittart is an artist, a poet and a playwright, but cynical and hard bitten and hard hating. He may now sit back, complacently as he contemplates Americans hysterically squandering their wealth and their future’’... "while he thinks to himself with a wry smile, 'I planned it that way.”’ (Porter Sargent: Getting US Into War, Boston, 1941.)

(To be continued)

NYUGATOSOK POSTÁJA

Linz, 1948 február 27.

AUSTRIAI MAGYAR REF. ÉS EV LELKIGONDOZÓI SZOLGÁLAT.

Igen tisztelt Szerkesztő Ur!

Szépen köszönöm a címemre megküldött lappéldányt. Engedje meg, hogy a januári szám 8. lapján “Amerika Magyar Reformátusai a Menekültekért” cimü cikkével kapcsolatban mindjárt néhány megjegyzést tegyek.

Ausztriában éppenugy, mint Németországban, kezdettől fogva a menekültek lelkigondozását az ugyancsak menekültként kikerült, illetve a leszerelt, tábori lelkészek végezték protestáns részről is. Körülbelül két év óta ez a lelkigondozás megszervezett egyházi adminisztráció keretében végzi működését. Ennek a szervezettségnek neve: Ausztriai Magyar Református és Evangélikus Lelkigondozói Szolgálat. Közös vezető lelkésze van a németországi hasonló nevű szolgálattal Nagy Sándor konventi titkár, egyetemes konventi megbízott személyében. Az Ausztriai Szolgálatnak központi irodája van Linzben, az amerikai zónában (Lanstrasse 45). Nagy Sándor nt. ur székhelye: Landshut, Theaterstrasse 63, Bayern. Hatáskör kiterjed minden zónára.

Ausztriai Szolgálatunk természetesen az itteni Evangélikus Egyház tudtával működik. De ennél még fontosabb az, hogy az Egyetemes Egyháztanács (WorldCouncif of Churches), Genf, tudomásával, jóváhagyásával és segítségével működik. Állandó kapcsolatot tartunk fenn mind a genfi központtal, mind annak az egyes ausztriai zónákban dolgozó képviselőivel.

Az amerikai hittestvérek részéről is megtörtént már az érdeklődés. Az Evangélical and Reformed Church megbízásából Dr. Dienes Barna elmhursti professzor ur az elmúlt év decemberében (miután megelőzőleg egy hónapot németországi magyarok között töltött) végiglátogatta az összes ausztriai magyar protestáns lelkészeket, felkeresett számos D. P. tábort, megismerte az itt élő magyar protestánsoknak, de egyúttal az itt élő összes magyaroknak problémáit, beszélt velük és beszélt nekik. Szolgálatunk kapja a “Reformátusok Lapja” cimü amerikai református egyházi néplapot.

Tudomásom szerint landshuti központunk összeköttetésben áll az