SAXON MINER’S FAME: RECORD COAL OUTPUT

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 22850, 21 January 1949, Page 2

SAXON MINER’S FAME: RECORD COAL OUTPUT

(From Reuter's Correspondent) BERLIN (by Air Mail)

A Saxon miner named Adolf Hennecke has become the most famous man in the Soviet zone of Germany. More jokes circulate about him and the "Hennecke Movement” than about any other German personality today. For Hennecke is the German Stakanov. On October 13, 1948, in a normal working shift he produced 350 per cent of the coal normally produced by one hewer. He was immediately seized upon by the Soviet-licensed press as a ‘‘hero of Socialist construction.”

Within a few days activists in all parts of the Soviet zone were overexceeding their plans in fabulous fashion, out-Hennecking Hennecke to the extent of overfulfilling their plans by as much as 1200 per cent in a single shift. The by special premium rations, reached such leaders of the SocialisPPWmy Party had to apply the brakes. Articles in the party press stated that there was no advantage in workers in a factory producing far more than their normal, if to do this they had to move special machines from another factory miles away just for one special record-breaking shift. Many of the stories circulating in the Soviet zone about Hennecke and his movement are unprintable. Typical of the more printable ones are: “Hennecke has had his foot amputated, he dropped his pay envelope”; “Hennecke is dead, he could not bear to wait for the lift and jumped down the shaft”; "Hennecke is dead, he drowned in his own sweat.”