To Sing in Freedom

From its first concert in 1945, the Mozartchor, Dresden's all-girl chorus, was a success. It meant fun and extra income for 30-odd office girls and factory workers, ages 14-30, who were members. They did not realize that it would also mean politics, danger and bitter personal decisions. The trouble began when Germany's Communist youth organization tried to persuade the group to appear at party rallies, add Communist songs to its repertory of hymns, folk music and lullabies. The singers refused.

Stooges. When Communist pressure le up a little in 1947, the three men in charge of the choir--Werner Schueck, its founder and leader, Werner Niebisch, publicity director, and Business Manager Ludwig Pulst--managed to get interzonal passes for a West German tour. But there was a condition: Niebisch had to agree to work as a spy for the Russians. Niebisch's work on the Western tour apparently did not satisfy the MVD. Once back in Dresden, the singers were accused by Communist papers of being Western spies; they found their food rations reduced, their wage taxes raised, the choir's contracts broken, their advertising placards defaced with "Reaktionare," and "Schumacherlinge" (Schumacher stooges). At last, 24 of the choir members decided to try to leave the Soviet zone. Business Manager Pulst went West to arrange concerts. Somehow, he was not very successful, and somehow a Western Germany newspaper revealed the choir's intentions.

The choir was now really frightened, but it had no prospects for making a living in West Germany. It jumped at a chance to sing at the big Titania Palast in the U.S. sector of Berlin. The members hoped to return home with enough money and publicity to leave the Soviet zone soon afterwards. The East zone police, obviously well informed about the choir's plans, struck a few days after the choir left for Berlin. Schueck's wife was arrested when she went to the Dresden railway station to send some scores to her husband. The same day Frau Niebisch and her eight-year-old daughter disappeared.

Nerves. When they heard about the disappearances, most of the choir decided not to go back to Dresden. One girl who was worried about her mother, and another who was about to be married, went back. Business Manager Pulst argued long and loudly against leaving the East zone, persuaded four more girls to go home. The rest, homesick and afraid of reprisals to their families, faced the uncertainty of getting a living in the West. Said a 27-year-old soprano: "Yes, my family is still in Dresden. The idea that I won't see them for God knows how long isn't very cheering. I don't dare think about the possibilities of reprisals. It's the same for all of us; we all have relatives in Dresden, but if they don't understand down there that we want to sing, that we're neutral, that we can't and don't want to hitch ourselves to a political thing, then we don't have any choice." To add to the nerve-racking situation, the choir was living in a dingy hotel only just inside the U.S. sector boundary, and momentarily expecting a Communist attempt to kidnap them. Frau Ursula-Sonja Nehl thought that a packet of sandwiches she found in her room had been poisoned.

West Berlin authorities gave police protection to the terrified group, moved them to a youth home in Wannsee until after their concert. At week's end, three more choir members, all minors, had gone back to Dresden. Also back in Dresden was Business Manager Pulst, about whom Choir-Leaders Schueck and Niebisch had a sharp suspicion: he was a Soviet agent, they thought, had deliberately failed to get West German bookings for the choir, had engineered the arrest of the two wives. The rest of the choir was flown to Frankfurt, where they will give a thanksgiving concert, train for a foreign tour. Standing in the bright sun at Frankfurt airport one of the girls said: "At last we can sing in freedom, and that's all that matters now."

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