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He counterattacked against the Nazis' propaganda outside of Ger–
many by flooding many countries with his "Brown Books,"
translated into many languages. He moved his readers by instilling
in them not only a fear and a horror of the Nazis but also the wish to
unmask and resist them.
Iri
a narrow deadend street which most passersby on the
Boulevard Montparnasse never even noticed, in a tiny house which
some satirical builder seemed to have improvised as a joke, were
woven the threads with which Willi and his people mobilized the free
world; for peace and freedom, against war and fascist oppression ,
for a universal humanistic culture and the salavation of the cultural
heritage, against the Nazi book burners, against barbarism. That
Miinzenberg was one of the leaders of the international movement
directed and financed by Moscow was known by many writers,
musicians, painters, professors, priests of all confessions, theater
and film people, and many other well-known representatives of the
intellectual professions, real or pseudo. They knew this and admired
Willi all the more; was he not a great example of tolerance and non–
partisan attitudes in the struggle for culture, peace and freedom?
Certainly it would have been nonsense to praise Miinzenberg
as a seductive scamp or to accuse him of preying on the good faith
of well-meaning philosophers and naive poets, or of leading them
astray by means of unscrupulous trickery. His sole strategem, which
he and his collaborators would use on anyone they were determined
to win over, was to convince that person that they needed him in
particular in the great and arduous struggle. They needed him as a
spokesman for the good cause, for an undertaking which was urgent
if human lives were to be saved, to fight against delusion in the face
of the growing threat to peace and freedom, and, finally, to shake
people out of their indifference.
If
the call came from him, this much
admired and esteemed man, the hesitant would awaken. Therefore ...
Yes, even the famous, who should not require such stroking,
have often to be reminded how much they are needed, that thanks
only to them everything becomes possible, while without them . . .
And the famous figures to whom Miinzenber!ts organization turned
had the feeling that they were being addressed in the name of his–
tory, that they were being offered and deserved an important role
which could only enhance and solidify their standing in the world.
Lest there be any misunderstanding: this was not so much a case of
unappeased vanity, or that sickly sweet, monotonous flattery of
