The work I have done so far has been purely organizational. The only goal was to guide the transport into more or less orderly paths, and especially to avoid Greater Berlin from being touched by those moving homeward.
To this effect, additional suggestions for improvement were offered to the Central Administration for Resettlers.
For the political work, a kind of welcoming letter (free!) after their return to the homeland would be of the utmost importance. The camp commander, Major Aljoschin (in charge of all releases in Frankfurt/Oder), indicated that it could be a million and more men who would arrive in the course of about a year.
The printed material need not be distributed only once, also, it could be designed such that it would be attractive for being passed along. If there is a possibility of financing the welcome letter independently, one should readily dispense with the signatures of political camps other than the SPD, signatures they would surely be happy to provide.
The common soldiers are actually very hungry for news and especially interested in precise information about conditions in Germany. If all agencies cooperate well, one could also integrate instructions for the way home.
All of my addresses were followed with intense attention and the appeals for collaboration on the reconstruction were loudly acclaimed.
Pure party speeches had to be dispensed with for lack of time, since, as I have said, my primary focus was on the organized departure to the destination station Brandenburg/H.
For us communists, however, the absence of Greater Berlin cannot represent a solution to the problem.
Until the return of the last prisoner of war, an apparatus would have to be created that deals only with this question. Given the attitude of many common soldiers that has been ascertained, this work is even more urgent than the work in the unions.
In this context I point to suggestions made several months ago concerning the exchange of German prisoners of war for former party comrades, which other parties are today using to their political advantage, without doing work to that end.
We must be the loudest shouters with the slogan that is becoming popular with wide segments of the population:
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