Oil on a Fire

The Allied Powers this week were still trying to kill Hermann Goring. The one-time Reich Marshal's suicide had cheated the Nuernberg gallows; now fat Hermann's secret satellites were glamorizing his role of Nazi martyr by circulating a probably faked version of his dying "appeal to the German nation." The cleverly phrased document turned up everywhere -- mimeographed, printed in the ancient Gothic lettering that Germans love, even as a wrapping for German meat rations. In it, Goring ostensibly invited his countrymen to sabotage the peace; justified bombings but weaseled on torture; said: "Try to forget some . . . things, but remember others. Above all remember that you are Germans . . . that you are the people who will some day again be able to show the world what you are made of. . . ." Germans, who still talk of "Unser Her mann," accepted the appeal as genuine, chalked phrases from it on walls and began to greet each other with "Forget . . but remember." Locked in the Allied Control Council's "top secret" drawer in Berlin is the unpublished and (the Council hopes) only authentic version of Goring's last message. To suggestions that the original be released to scotch the phonies, the Council has stubbornly replied: "We shall not spread German propaganda -- this would be like oil on a fire."

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