AACHEN

Grey River Argus, 25 November 1944, Page 6

AACHEN

ANCIENT CITY, SPA, INDUSTRIAL TOWN. WHICH WAS ONCE STRONGLY ANTI-NAZI. (By Alfred Meusel, former Professor of Economics and Sociology |at • the University of Aachen). The ancient city of Aachen, called by some foreigners by its French name, Aix-la’-Chapelle, was founded by the Romans, and is the first important German town to be liberated from the yoke of Nazism. It is situated in a very lovely landscape of vast forests, hills and wooded mountains, under the northern slope of the Ardennes. From the main square of the city you could reach the Dutch frontier by, a half-hour tram-ride, and the Belgian frontier in an hour. The French frontier is a little farther off. Aachen is both a spa and an industrial town. The backbone of the city’s economic life is ' the textile industry 7, around which are grouped all those trades which provide the means and impliments of production for it, such as the manufacture of . textile machines, industrial soaps, needles, pins, etc. The heavy industries are represented by a big wagon firm. Around the city stretches a semicircle of coalfields. The Aachen miners, who are very poor, live in the so-called “miners’ villages” like Eschweiler and Stolberg. The coal hewn in the Aachen district is inferior to that of the Ruhr and the Aachener pits are much less well equipped. ABOLISHING SERFDOM Owing to the geographical position of the city, its inhabitants are entirely lacking in “racial purity.” Of all the foreign influences which make themselves felt at Aachen, the French one is by far the strongest. It goes back to the times of the French Revqjution and of the Napoleonic Empire.

They thereby meant that he had abolished serfdom established equality before the law and done away with the host of petty principalities .which covered the Rhine valley until the end of the 18th century, when they collapsed like card-houses under the impact of the French revolution.

Right up to 1933 the Nazis were unable to strike root in Aachen. They were feared and despised as a “Prussian” and Militarist Party intent on unleashing the dogs of war. An overwhelming majority of the 153,000 inhabitants are Catholics. From 1871 to the start of the ’3o’s, the Catholic Centre Party predominated. Then the Coriimunisis began to catch up.

When I used to tour the countryside I came across many peasants who had a coloured picture of Napoleon in their cottage. The called him the man “who had freed them.” COMMUNIST VOTE SOARS The first Reichstag election in which I took part at Aachen was that of May, 1924. On that occasion the Centre polled 32,000 votes, the communists, who were second, 8,000 votes. The remainder of the electorate was made up of 6,000 Social Democrats 1 , 4,000 Conservatives, and small groups of Nazis, Right-wing Liberals, _ etc. A comparison between this election and that of November, 1932, shows the following picture: the vote for the Centre Party had almost remained stable, whereas l the Communist vote had soared to 28,000; the Nazis, for whom 7,000 votes were cast, occupied the third place.

By their united support of all the United Front and People’s Front activities directed against the growing menace of war and Fascism, the Communists had succeeded in rallying to their side the bulk of the new voters. REDEEM WRONGS DONE. My ten years’ stay, at Aachen came to an end in the spring of 1933, when, on account of my anti-Nazi views. I was forced to resign and was imprisoned. I should like to stress the date, because I do not want to convey the wrong impression that the Aachen of 1944 is still' the same as that of 1933. It is beyond doubt that the vast m?.jority of the Aacheners held antiNazi opinions until well past the setting up of the dictatorship.

However, their attitude toward and under the terror regime has not been basically different from that of Germans in other parts of the country.

Thus we can only hope that the Aacheners, under the opportunity of the hour, will revive the good traditions that they built up before 1933.

This would enable them to do their share in the tasks which devolve upon all free Germans: to support the Allies, to redeem —as far as humanly possible—the wrongs done by our people, and—-for the first time in the life of our nation —build up a truly peaceable people’s republic.