Hero A.W.O.L

Willy Knoblauch was a model worker at the hot carbide furnaces of the Piesteritz nitrogen plant in Communist East Germany. The comrade leaders of the plant union liked Willy. But Willy did not care much for them.

When comrade leaders came to him one day last summer and offered to designate him an Aktivist (the East German equivalent of Russia's speedup Stakhano-vites), Willy calmly replied, "Nein. There are better people here than me." The union leaders were astounded; after all, as an Aktivist, Willy would be entitled to a 10,000-mark bonus every month. They reported Willy's refusal to the Chemical Workers' Union in East Berlin. The union bosses shook their heads in admiration. Willy Knoblauch, they decided, should get even more than Aktivist honors. He should be made a Hero of Work.

Willy's fellow workers were overjoyed and a little envious that Willy would now have the Hero's privilege of borrowing 20,000 marks from the state, and be able to spend most of his time being exhibited as a patriot instead of tending the hot furnaces. But when the union men told Willy of the new honor, he astounded them again. "Nein," said he.

When comrade leaders say a man is a Hero of Work, he is a Hero of Work, period. One day last month, Willy Knoblauch got a telegram summoning him to East Berlin to a Heroes of Work Festival. He kissed his wife & two children goodbye and boarded a train for East Berlin.

Two days later, President Johannes Dieckmann of the lower house of the East German legislature stepped before a cheering .throng to proclaim formally the East German Heroes of 1952. As the names were called, the crowd turned expectantly toward the place of honor reserved for Heroes. The others were there, but not Willy.

At precisely that moment, Willy Knoblauch, a sleepy-eyed, well-built 40, was waiting in an examination room in West Berlin to register himself as a refugee from Communist Germany and to apply for sanctuary in the West. "I just couldn't stand that circus any longer," said he.

A few days later, his wife & children joined him. Frau Knoblauch brought a letter mailed to Willy by the East German Prime Minister himself. "May your example," it said, "lead ever broader circles of our people . . ."

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