Saturday, September 26, 2020

Agent Sonya,Moscow's most daring Wartime Spy by Ben Mc Intyre 2020 335pg

 

A Women who spied for the Soviets for years   25/9/20 and 9/3/22
1815 Napoleonic war the last time Switzerland saw war.
1919  Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg founded the German Communist Party KPD
1922 Walter Rathenau assassinated by ultra nationalist after signing a treaty with Russia.
1923 Sun Yatsen founding father of he Chinese Republic followed by Chiang Kai-shek who purged communists.
1924 There were 160 thousand Jews in Berlin roughly a third of Germany's Jewish population. Robert Rene Kuczynski was a distinguished demographic statistician.  "Kuczynski rate" and had the biggest private library in Germany. They spoke English and French also and Karl Liebknecht ( Marxist)Max Liebermann , Walter Rathenau and Albert Einstein were amongst their friends. During WW1 he calculated Germany's nutritional requirements.

1926 Jeugen her brother after studying economics studied at the Brookings institute in Washington

The KPD led by Ernst Thalmann got direct funding from Moscow and had Die Rote Fahne (Red flag) newspaper 

1926 Jozef Pilsudski the strong Polish leader died 
1927 Ursula worked in the archive for Ullstein publishers, Germany's largest newspaper and book publisher. She went to the US for an adventure and taught German to the children of a Quaker family and saw the depression there 
Henry Street Settlement NY founded by Lillian Wald . She became aware of issues of minority rights suffrage and racial integration
1929 Agnes Smedley "Daughter of Earth, Mike Gold "Jews without money"
1930 Married Rudolf Hamburger and he got a job in British  Shanghai as the municipal architect.They went there via the Trans Siberian Railway. Shanghai was the largest city in China. Germany lost her territory  in China at the end of WW1. Foreigners needed no passport and it was the spy capital of Asia. They had a son Michael.
Richard Sorge (fictional James Bond by Ian Fleming) He sent German and Japanese secrets to Moscow. While Rudi ws at work their home was used as a Party meeting place. 
Noulens was Yakov Rudnik a Ukrainian Jew, was arrested as a spy in China 
1932 Japan invaded the Chinese sections of Shanghai
1935 Reich Citizen Law< Jews could no longer be German citizens.
1933 Hitler took power this was 14 years after the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II
1937 Sino -Soviet non aggression pact.Later Vassily Chukov was now senior advisor to Chaing Kai-shek. 

Nazi agents in Britian were all caught thanks to Blechley Park.but there were plenty of Soviet spies including the Cambridge 5
1938 -1938 Stalinist Purges many of the people she worked with were killed.
1938 Chaimberlan's Munich Agreement removed the last hope of anti Fascist Union in Europe so General Franco had a free hand in Spain to deal with the Republicans.
1938 Nov 1938 Kristallnacht
1938- 1940 17thousand Jewsih refugees fled to Shanghai on the Lloyd Triestino Line.
1939 August 23rd When Russia and Germany signed a pact a plan was almost ready to assassinate Hitler. Now all her work was put on hold. 
1939 November Russian invaded Finland the Winter war till Moscow Peace   March 1940
1939 1st Sept Germany attacked Poland 3rd Sept Britain declared war. 
1941 August  Britain and the Soviets invaded Persia to secure the oil fields.  
         August  Churchill gave the go ahead to do nuclear weapon  research.
1942 Dec Pearl Harbour
1942 German army surrounded at Stalingrad
1943August Quebec Agreement between Churchill and Roosevelt to make an atom bomb. 
Klaus Fucks was a leading Atomic scientist who fled Germany and handed over all nuclear information to Ursula to send to the Soviets .He was one of 17 British scientists to go to the US to work on the Manhattan project and handed in all information he got there. 
130,000 people worked on the Manhattan Project
Millicent Bagot was the spy catcher portrayed as Connie Sachs in John le Carre novels and she worked under Filby
Lieutenant Joseph Gould  American Army recruited spies to be dropped into Germany from anti Nazis exiles living in England these were put into POW camps in England to learn from German prisoners about current Germany, They discovered that many German soldiers still believed that Hitler would win the war.
 The OSS did not pay attention to the fact that they were communist workers connected via a "cutout " or intermediary to  Ursula. They dropped near Berlin and reported that 2/3rds of  German industry and power there was still working The newest US communication technology got to the Russian and as well as all they reported back
1945 2nd May the German forces surrendered to the Russian General Vasily Chuikov. 1941 He had been the Soviet defense attache in Chunking and had helped get Rudi out of Chinese prison there
1948 Johann Patra needed help getting out of China as all foreigners were fleeing, he had married a German woman and adopted a child. As an anti Nazi German felt he was entitled to repatriation. The GRU had severed contact with him, and he ended  up  in South America.
1949 the USSR first secret  nuclear test in Kazakhstan.
1950 Klaus Fuchs was arrested and mentioned that he dropped off messages to a lady in Banbury. The Americans had been decoding the Venona traffic and Ursula took her 2 younger children and flew to Berlin where her brother Jugens lived. She refused to do more spy work Len and her son Michael soon followed.  She became a writer of propaganda

1977 She wrote her autobiography called  "Sonya's Report", the Stasi wanted her to censor her unconventional love life but she refused . At the age of 84 she was  permitted to go to Britain to publicise her memoirs. MPs wanted her arrested but MI5 did not want an embarrassing trial
2000 Ursula Kuczynski died at the age of 93
# 1956 Soviet crushing Hungarian Revolt
#1961 Soviet Building of the Berlin Wall
#1968 Soviet crushed the Prague Spring
#1989 Fall of Berlin Wall
#2014 Russian invasion of Crimea
#2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine
----------------------------------------------
Ursula read books by Lenin Luxemburg and radical novels by Jack London and Maxim Gorky. Her mother Bertha would not give her an academic education so she was sent to study typing and shorthand. Ursula was aware of the Weimar Republic's wealth of the small privileged and poverty and begging of the unemployed. She was also  involved inthe Henry street settlement under the progressive Lilian Wald. She worked at Prosnits books where she met American communists
For an adventure she went to America where she worked teaching German to a Quaker family
 The men in her life.
.Rudolf Hamburger did architectural modernism of the Bauhaus movement. Albert Speer (Hitlers architect)was at the same Berlin Technical University.
1930 Married Rudolf Hamburger and he got a job in British  Shanghai as the municipal architect.They went there via the Trans Siberian Railway. Shanghai was the largest city in China. Germany lost her territory  in China at the end of WW1. Foreigners needed no passport and it was the spy capital of Asia. Rudi could not get work in Germany when he qualified as an architect. He answered and add that told him if he got to Shanghai there was a job for him. They went via Siberia and Manchuria. Ursula was bored being the wife of a colonial .  They had a son Michael.
When she heard that Agnes Smedley was in Shanghai met up with her, and this brought her into the circle of espionage.
1929 Daughter of Earth by Agnes Smedley '' She was a troubled person and advised to write a story of her thoughts which ended up being a successful novel. Shanghai was the largest city in China and the birthplace of the CCP Chinese Comunist party.
.  

`Richard Sorge code name Ramsey  (fictional James Bond by Ian Fleming)He recruited Ursula. The spies were run by the Centre who used them and when they were no longer of value cast them aside.   He sent German and Japanese secrets to Moscow. While Rudi was at work their home was used as a Party meeting place. Ursula had a relationship with him and he took her for rides on the motorbike. He was the one whose friendship she never got over and always had a photo of him on her wall. He survived the purge of the Russian army as he refused to leave Japan and go to |Moscow at the time.
He informed the Soviets that Japan had not intention of invading Siberia. He was one of a few that informed  Germany were about invade Russia a report rejected by Stalin. His wife was arrested as a German spy and died in  a Gulag. He was hanged in Japan in 1944 where he was spying on German and Japanese secrets. While Rudi was at work the home was used as a secret meeting place for Soviet spies under Sorge
 Ursula and Agnes went out touring and brought back reports of what Japan was doing. She was invited to come to Moscow for a 6 month course to be a spy, here you made friends but  never ever knew their names. Meanwhile she took Michael to the Hamburger parents who were living in Czechoslovakia..After 6 months she fetched Michael and travelled back to Shanghai by ship. On the ship she made out that she just met up with her partner Johann Patra.
  was a seaman who could speak a number of languages
She told Rudi she was leaving him and took Michael to Mukdan (Shenyang today) with Johan Patra They got a cabin in the garden of a German aristocrat who worked at the German Embassy next door. He was a Nazi who dealt in arms with Japanese Military in Manchuria. and was extremely talkative. And promised he would look after Mischa if something happened to her. She and Johan Patra had a daughter  Nina together, Rudi was prepared to be the father if she was alone.
They also worked in Harbin, which was full of White Russians that they had no sympathy for. They saw famine and peasants abanding their children especially baby girls 
The Soviets considered Japanese expansion in China a threat. Meanwhile with the Stalinist purges you could never ask what happened to your previous boss.
1942 Rudolf worked in Tehran as an architect building the Persian Finance Ministry building. Russia and Britain had troops there so that the Germans could not get the oil fields. He was inept as a spy and asked for information and was arrested by the British and sent  to the Soviets who decided he was a double agent and put him in a Gulag for 10years.

 
 .  Otto, Rudi's brother, a refugee in Shanghai got a message that Rudi was at Bai Mansion prison. He contacted Johann Patra. After 9 month captivity he was put on a plane to Russia.
1935 most of Kuczynski's family had fled from Germany to Britain and she visited them there, then went off to Warsaw 1936 with Rudi and her nanny Olga Moth. Patra was pleased that Rudi was back with her for his child Nina. In Warsaw Rudi found work as an architect. Ursula went to work in Danzig(Gdansk) for 3 months a "Free City" but run by German  Nazi's, They set to work to sabatage the German Uboats.
1937 she received the highest award The order of the Red Banner given to her personally by Mikhail Kalenin. (Kalingrad named after him)  He was the one who signed the execution of the 22000 Polish officers in the Katyn massacre.
Alexander Allan Foote 1905 -1956 a  Spanish Civil War Veteran. He had got a girl pregnant and decided to take his chances in war in Spain. Ursula sent him to Munich where he had lessons in German and learned about the BMW factory and aircraft engines used by the luftwaffe. When Ursula fled from Switzerland he took her role. He was at a restaurant which was Hitlers favorite. here he saw the Milford sister and Oswald Mosely.. They had plans to assassinate Hitle but once the Ribontroff treaty  signed this was called off.   He later went to West Berlin and informed on the Soviet spies but never about Ursula.to M16
Len Beuton 1914 to 1997 a  Spanish Civil War Veteran  It was well known that Russia used these veterans of the International Brigade as a spuy recruiting ground. He had been a fighter in the Republic Army during the Spanish Civil war and one of the few survivors of his brigade he was fearless
 Ursula was in Switzerland where she worked and trained Len Beurton. He was in Munich studying German and frequented the restaurant that Hitler did and worked on a plan to assassinate Hiltler till the Ribbentrop Pact when this was called off he finally crossed into Switzerland after war was declared.
 She married Len and got a British passport. Himlers agents were combing Switzerland  
 to flee as she knew she was compromised. Olga Muth went into the British Embassy to tell them that Ursula was a spy as she could not go to England and wanted the baby who she had brought up. Ursula came  came via Vichy and Spain to Portugal. She took a ship to Liverpool and got there just before the port was bombed. In Oxford  she took a house in the Judge Neville Lazkis garden, a leader in the Jewish community.. Len gave the British embassy infomation about Nazi's and they gave him a false passport as he could otherwise not travel through Franco's Spain as he was a listed Republican fighters. Len and Ursula had a son Peter. Now she had 3 children   each with different fathers. Ursula's 4 sisters each married Englishmen and .settled 
Her brother Jeugen Cuxzynski also fled to East Germany.
Alexander Rado was a Hungarian Jew 
Melita Norwood
Milicent Bagot  was the one who realized that Usula was a spy but never succeeded in getting evidence; perhaps Filby managed to discourage this investigation. As a woman working under men while Usula appeared to be a housewife with children.
1950 When Karl Fuchs was arrested she knew she had to leave England
The Verone traffic was now decoded so all the spies were in danger but she had already left for East Germany. She was one of the few who told the authorities she was no longer working in espionage. Most Russian spies could not retire and usually died in disgrace. 
She became a writer under the name Ruth Werner.
She loved Rudi for his kindness, Petra for his revolutionary strength and Len for his long sweet comradeship.
 Agent Sonya,Moscow's most daring Wartime Spy by Ben Mc Intyre 2020 335pg 
A Women who spied for the Soviets for years   25/9/20 
Time line and history part of the story
1815 Napoleonic war the last time Switzerland saw war.
1919  Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg founded the German Communist Party KPD
1922 Walter Rathenau assassinated by ultra nationalist after signing a treaty with Russia.
1923 Sun Yatsen founding father of he Chinese Republic followed by Chiang Kai-shek who purged communists.
1924 There were 160 thousand Jews in Berlin roughly a third of Germany's Jewish population. Robert Rene Kuczynski was a distinguished demographic statistician.  "Kuczynski rate" and had the biggest private library in Germany. They spoke English and French also and Karl Liebknecht ( Marxist)Max Liebermann , Walter Rathenau and Albert Einstein were amongst their friends. During WW1 he calculated Germany's nutritional requirements.
1926 Jeugen her brother after studying economics studied at the Brookings institute in Washington
The KPD led by Ernst Thalmann got direct funding from Moscow and had Die Rote Fahne (Red flag) newspaper 
1926 Jozef Pilsudski the strong Polish leader died 
1927 Ursula worked in the archive for Ullstein publishers, Germany's largest newspaper and book publisher. She went to the US for an adventure and taught German to the children of a Quaker family and saw the depression there. 
Henry Street Settlement NY founded by Lillian Wald . She became aware of issues of minority rights suffrage and racial integration
1929 Agnes Smedley wrote"Daughter of Earth, Mike Gold "Jews without money"
1930 Married Rudolf Hamburger and he got a job in British  Shanghai as the municipal architect.
Noulens was Yakov Rudnik a Ukrainian Jew, was arrested as a spy in China 
1932 Japan invaded the Chinese sections of Shanghai
1935 Reich Citizen Law< Jews could no longer be German citizens.
1933 Hitler took power this was 14 years after the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II
1937 Sino -Soviet non aggression pact.Later Vassily Chukov was now senior advisor to Chaing Kai-shek. 
1938 -1938 Stalinist Purges many of the people she worked with her were killed.
1938 Chaimberlan's Munich Agreement removed the last hope of anti Fascist Union in Europe so General Franco had a free hand in Spain to deal with the Republicans.
1938 Nov 1938 Kristallnacht
1938- 1940 17thousand Jewsih refugees fled to Shanghai on the Lloyd Triestino Line.
Nazi agents in Britian were all caught thanks to Blechley Park.but there were plenty of Soviet spies including the Cambridge 5
1939 August 23rd When Russia and Germany signed a pact a plan was almost ready to assassinate Hitler. Now all her work was put on hold. 
1939 November Russian invaded Finland the Winter war till Moscow Peace   March 1940
1939 1st Sept Germany attacked Poland 3rd Sept Britain declared war. 
1941 August  Britain and the Soviets invaded Persia to secure the oil fields.  
         August  Churchill gave the go ahead to do nuclear weapon  research.
 1941 Zhukov had been the Soviet defense attache in Chunking and had helped get Rudi out of Chinese prison there
1942 Dec Pearl Harbour
1942 German army surrounded at Stalingrad
1943August Quebec Agreement between Churchill and Roosevelt to make an atom bomb. 
1945 2nd May the German forces surrendered to the Russian General Vasily Zhuikov.
1949 the USSR first secret  nuclear test in Kazakhstan.
1950 Klaus Fuchs was arrested, so Ursula knew she was exposed.
 #1989 Fall of Berlin Wall
 2000 Ursula Kuczynski died at the age of 93
 
----------------------------------------------
Ursula read books by Lenin Luxemburg and radical novels by Jack London and Maxim Gorky. Her mother Bertha would not give her an academic education so she was sent to study typing and shorthand. Ursula was aware of the Weimar Republic's wealth of the small privileged and poverty and begging of the unemployed. She was also  involved inthe Henry street settlement under the progressive Lilian Wald. She worked at Prosnits books where she met American communists
For an adventure she went to America where she worked teaching German to a Quaker family
 The men in her life.
.Rudolf Hamburger did architectural modernism of the Bauhaus movement. Albert Speer (Hitlers architect)was at the same Berlin Technical University.
They went there via the Trans Siberian Railway. Shanghai was the largest city in China. Germany lost her territory  in China at the end of WW1. Foreigners needed no passport and it was the spy capital of Asia. They had a son Michael.
Richard Sorge (fictional James Bond by Ian Fleming) He sent German and Japanese secrets to Moscow. While Rudi ws at work their home was used as a Party meeting place. 
1930 Married Rudolf Hamburger and he got a job in British  Shanghai as the municipal architect.They went there via the Trans Siberian Railway. Shanghai was the largest city in China. Germany lost her territory  in China at the end of WW1. Foreigners needed no passport and it was the spy capital of Asia. Rudi could not get work in Germany when he qualified as an architect. He answered and add that told him if he got to Shanghai there was a job for him. They went via Siberia and Manchuria. Ursula was bored being the wife of a colonial .  They had a son Michael.
When she heard that Agnes Smedley was in Shanghai met up with her, and this brought her into the circle of espionage.
1929 Daughter of Earth by Agnes Smedley '' She was a troubled person and advised to write a story of her thoughts which ended up being a successful novel. Shanghai was the largest city in China and the birthplace of the CCP Chinese Comunist party.
.  

`Richard Sorge code name Ramsey  (fictional James Bond by Ian Fleming)He recruited Ursula. The spies were run by the Centre who used them and when they were no longer of value cast them aside.   He sent German and Japanese secrets to Moscow. While Rudi was at work their home was used as a Party meeting place. Ursula had a relationship with him and he took her for rides on the motorbike. He was the one whose friendship she never got over and always had a photo of him on her wall. He survived the purge of the Russian army as he refused to leave Japan and go to |Moscow at the time.
He informed the Soviets that Japan had not intention of invading Siberia. He was one of a few that informed  Germany were about invade Russia a report rejected by Stalin. His wife was arrested as a German spy and died in  a Gulag. He was hanged in Japan in 1944 where he was spying on German and Japanese secrets. While Rudi was at work the home was used as a secret meeting place for Soviet spies under Sorge
 Ursula and Agnes went out touring and brought back reports of what Japan was doing. She was invited to come to Moscow for a 6 month course to be a spy, here you made friends but  never ever knew their names. Meanwhile she took Michael to the Hamburger parents who were living in Czechoslovakia..After 6 months she fetched Michael and travelled back to Shanghai by ship.
Johann Patra. On the ship she made out that she just met up with her partner  was a seaman who could speak a number of languages
She told Rudi she was leaving him and took Michael to Mukdan (Shenyang today) with Johan Patra. They got a cabin in the garden of a German aristocrat who worked at the German Embassy next door. He was a Nazi who dealt in arms with Japanese Military in Manchuria. and was extremely talkative. And promised he would look after Mischa if something happened to her. She and Johan Patra had a daughter  Nina together, Rudi was prepared to be the father if she was alone.
They also worked in Harbin, which was full of White Russians that they had no sympathy for. They saw famine and peasants abanding their children especially baby girls 
The Soviets considered Japanese expansion in China a threat. Meanwhile with the Stalinist purges you could never ask what happened to your previous boss.
1942 Rudolf worked in Tehran as an architect building the Persian Finance Ministry building. Russia and Britain had troops there so that the Germans could not get the oil fields. He was inept as a spy and asked for information and was arrested by the British and sent  to the Soviets who decided he was a double agent and put him in a Gulag for 10years.

 
 .  Otto, Rudi's brother, a refugee in Shanghai got a message that Rudi was at Bai Mansion prison. He contacted Johann Patra. After 9 month captivity he was put on a plane to Russia.
1935 most of Kuczynski's family had fled from Germany to Britain and she visited them there, then went off to Warsaw 1936 with Rudi and her nanny Olga Moth. Patra was pleased that Rudi was back with her for his child Nina. In Warsaw Rudi found work as an architect. Ursula went to work in Danzig(Gdansk) for 3 months a "Free City" but run by German  Nazi's, They set to work to sabatage the German Uboats.
1937 she received the highest award The order of the Red Banner given to her personally by Mikhail Kalenin. (Kalingrad named after him)  He was the one who signed the execution of the 22000 Polish officers in the Katyn massacre.
Alexander Allan Foote 1905 -1956 a  Spanish Civil War Veteran. He had got a girl pregnant and decided to take his chances in war in Spain. Ursula sent him to Munich where he had lessons in German and learned about the BMW factory and aircraft engines used by the luftwaffe. When Ursula fled from Switzerland he took her role. He was at a restaurant which was Hitlers favorite. here he saw the Milford sister and Oswald Mosely.. They had plans to assassinate Hitle but once the Ribontroff treaty  signed this was called off.   He later went to West Berlin and informed on the Soviet spies but never about Ursula.to M16
Len Beuton 1914 to 1997 a  Spanish Civil War Veteran  It was well known that Russia used these veterans of the International Brigade as a spuy recruiting ground. He had been a fighter in the Republic Army during the Spanish Civil war and one of the few survivors of his brigade he was fearless
 Ursula was in Switzerland where she worked and trained Len Beurton. He was in Munich studying German and frequented the restaurant that Hitler did and worked on a plan to assassinate Hiltler till the Ribbentrop Pact when this was called off he finally crossed into Switzerland after war was declared.
 She married Len and got a British passport. Himlers agents were combing Switzerland  
 to flee as she knew she was compromised. Olga Muth went into the British Embassy to tell them that Ursula was a spy as she could not go to England and wanted the baby who she had brought up. Ursula came  came via Vichy and Spain to Portugal. She took a ship to Liverpool and got there just before the port was bombed. In Oxford  she took a house in the Judge Neville Lazkis garden, a leader in the Jewish community.. Len gave the British embassy infomation about Nazi's and they gave him a false passport as he could otherwise not travel through Franco's Spain as he was a listed Republican fighters. Len and Ursula had a son Peter. Now she had 3 children   each with different fathers. Ursula's 4  in sisters each married Englishmen and .settled in England.
Her brother Jeugen Cuxzynski also fled to East Germany.
Alexander Rado was a Hungarian Jew 
Melita Norwood  depicted as Red Joan in movie British women Soviet spy exposed in 1992 but not prosecuted
Milicent Bagot  was the one who realized that Usula was a spy but never succeeded in getting evidence; perhaps Filby managed to discourage this investigation. As a woman working under men while Usula appeared to be a housewife with children.
1948 Johann Patra needed help getting out of China as all foreigners were fleeing, he had married a German woman and adopted a child. As an anti Nazi German felt he was entitled to repatriation. The GRU had severed contact with him, and he ended  up  in South America.
1950 When Karl Fuchs was arrested she knew she had to leave England 
1950 Klaus Fuchs was arrested and mentioned that he dropped off messages to a lady in Banbury. The Americans had been decoding the Venona traffic and Ursula took her 2 younger children and flew to Berlin where her brother Jugens lived. She refused to do more spy work Len and her son Michael soon followed.  She became a writer of propaganda
Klaus Fucks was a leading Atomic scientist who fled Germany and handed over all nuclear information to Ursula to send to the Soviets .He was one of 17 British scientists to go to the US to work on the Manhattan project and handed in all information he got there. 
130,000 people worked on the Manhattan Project
Millicent Bagot was the spy catcher portrayed as Connie Sachs in John le Carre novels and she worked under Filby
Lieutenant Joseph Gould  American Army recruited spies to be dropped into Germany from anti Nazis exiles living in England these were put into POW camps in England to learn from German prisoners about current Germany, They discovered that many German soldiers still believed that Hitler would win the war.
 The OSS did not pay attention to the fact that they were communist workers connected via a "cutout " or intermediary to  Ursula. They dropped near Berlin and reported that 2/3rds of  German industry and power there was still working The newest US communication technology got to the Russian and as well as all they reported back

1977 She wrote her autobiography called  "Sonya's Report", the Stasi wanted her to censor her unconventional love life but she refused . At the age of 84 she was  permitted to go to Britain to publicise her memoirs. MPs wanted her arrested but MI5 did not want an embarrassing trial
The Verone traffic was now decoded so all the spies were in danger but she had already left for East Germany. She was one of the few who told the authorities she was no longer working in espionage. Most Russian spies could not retire and usually died in disgrace. 
She became a writer under the name Ruth Werner.

She loved Rudi for his kindness, Petra for his revolutionary strength and Len for his long sweet comradeship.
Richard Sorge offered glamour and peril. Johan Patra's seaman was jealous and competitive, while Len needed her for simple, strong and unquestioning love.

Richard Sorge offered glamour and peril. Johan Patra's seaman was jealous and competitive, while Len needed her for simple, strong and unquestioning love.



  

Sunday, September 20, 2020

Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand 2010

  A WW2 story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption about Louis Zamperini  398 pages  11/9/2020

by the writer of Seabiscuit 
1929 the dirigible Graf Zeppelin flew over. also went onto Tokyo.  The story starts in Torrance California 
Eugenics was in vogue in the states and undesirable or mental patients were sterilized.  
He was a bad boy looking for attention till his brother encouraged him to do track running. 
1934 He ran a race and did a  mile in 1 minute 18 in Southern California , this record was not broken for 15 years. and got the name the Torrence tornado. He tested and could stay under water for 1 minute 45seconds
1936 A heat wave in NY killed a thousand people, when he was in the US Olympic trials.
In Berlin he was complemented by Hitler for his fast finish.
1937Japan goes into China.
1940 Olympics were set to take place in Helsinki, Finland, the stadium destroyed by Soviet bombs.
1941 Dec7th Attack on Pearl Harbour. Thailand Shanghai , Malaya , Philippines Guam, Midway. Wake
1942 Doolittle raid on Tokyo,15 planes 80 men of which 60 were saved in China. 30 thousand Chinese troops and 250thousand Chinese civilians were executed as a result.
1942 Loie is now a bombardier 2nd Lieutenant on a B24 called "Superman". During WW2 35,933 Planes, that is 52,173 men of the AA F were lost in battle and training accidents.
  Fiorello de Guardiia was Civil Defence. Minister . 
Only about 30% of men who crashed landed at sea were saved. Many planes sent out to rescue also were lost.
1943 Life vests were called Mae West later after 1970 called Dolly Partens as they looked like big boobs.
They attacked Canton in Gilbert Islands and also Nauru, a phosphate island, they were based at Funafuti and were attacked there by the Japanese.  We are given details of a mission where they just had enough fuel to return after and the mechanics counted 594 holes in the plane's body. Half the crew were badly wounded and the Superman never flew again.
They were on the Green Hornet when an engine failed and they crashed the pilot Phil, Mac and Louis survived he was pulled down but managed to escape, he swam for the rafts lucking it hal along rope trailing behind and he grabbed it. The other 2 were wounded. All they found was D rathion of bitter chocolate,a brass mirror , flare gun, sea dye fishhooks, fishing line, screwdriver, pliers and a few tine of water, glue and patch kit.
Mac ate all the chocolate later on he died more through depression than other reasons. The Search missions passed and did not see their signals. Some rain they trapped and filled their tines. An albatross landed on his head and caught it and used it for bait but sharks stole their hooks. He managed to hook a pilot fish which swam with sharks.
A Japanese  plane flew over then straffed them; they repaired one raft and used the 2nd raft to cover them. At one stage sharks jumped and them and they hit them they caught smaller sharks and knew you can only eat the liver, the rest is ammonia poison.
After 47 days at sea at Kwajalein Marshall Islands they tried to land on a small island but were seen by a Japanese ship and taken into custody. They had travelled 2000 miles. Louis was locked in a prison cell on the wall he saw 9 American names of prisoners who were killed there. He added his own name later when the American captured the island it was recognised.  Japanese POW used to commit suicide or run into machine gun fire. On the island of Ballale 98 US POWS were executed as the Japs thought an invasion was imminent. The Japanese like the Nazi's did biological experiment on native islanders and US POWs. On the island of Tinian 5 thousand Korean slave conscripts were murdered before the US invaded.
He and Phil were transferred to Japan to Ashio camp. The book goes into detail of the cruelty of the Japanese, the starvation, the fact that they were allwoed to write letter that were never sent,Red Cross parcels arrived and were not given to them but distributed to the guards who were seen smoking US cigarettes. One particular guard took a dislike to Louie. There is a list of the diseases they fell victim to dysandtry beri beri, typhus, malaria. 
1944 at the end of the year Louie under guard was wheeling offal from the butcher under guard to the camp and noted that the village. There were no young men in the village not much food in the market and children were tearing down houses to make firebreaks and digging slit trenches. The starving population would fight to the last.
Tokyo Rose broadcast propaganda in English and was taken to broadcast a message that he was alive and well. This was picked up in South Africa and by a shortwave fan and transcribed it and sent a card. When asked again to read Japanese propaganda he refused.
1944July.B-29s  Superfortress  could fly at 445mph  started bombing Japan in mass
1945 May German capitulated and the Philippines were reoccupied.
1945 Sept 15 was the day that all POWs were to be eliminated and the guards were had plans and were waiting for instruction to do thisOn the Tinian island 5 thousand Korean captives were massacred. 
1945 Aug 6th Little Boy on Hiroshima , Fat Man on Aug 9th Nagasaki Atomic bombed. A Silverplate  B29 with fuel injection  Enola Gay piloted byPaul Tibbets from Tintian Island, of the Northern Mariana Islands.
1945 Aug 15thTheir guards were all in the office listening to the Emperor speech after that Louie received 5 letters  Now the Japanese spoke to them as friends who needed to fight the "Red Menace of the Soviets taking Japan's Kuril Islands.
A plane flew over and its light morse coded the war was over. They marked on the ground "We need food" A day later pallets of food started being dropped on a place they had marked.
1945 Sept2   Japan signed a treaty of surrender on the Missouri. MacAuthor and Japanese Foreign Minister Shigemitsu signed for the Japanese government, while Gen Umezu for the Japanese armed force. There were 215 thousand POWs under Japanese control.. 
In the villages in private homes they saw large industrial machines. Commander Fitgerald ask the railway official for a 10 coach train to take them to Tokyo and was told no. He punched the manager and the next day a train was waiting. They were flown to Hawaii where the got medical attention to be able to arrive home healthy.
5400 Japanese were tried for crimes against humanity,4400 were convicted and 920 were executed.
1948 He wanted to compete as a runner in the London Olympics but hurt his ankle in training.
By 1952 When the US ended her occupation of Japan it was agreed that war criminals who had not been executed would no longer be searched for and those in prison would be paroled.
In 1998 Louie was invited to carry the flame at the Tokyo Olympics.





Wednesday, September 2, 2020

Postwar: A history of Europe since 1945 by Tony Judt 2005

  Post War History of Europe by Tony Judt 2005

Europe became a union as nothing else would work. The separation of east and west was a contest between Communism and 'capitalism'
The post war history of Europe lasted a long time and ended with the end of the Cold War. Austria was considered Hitler's first victim and so this authorized Vienna to exorcise its past. The post war western Europe capitalist prosperity underpinned the welfare state and social peace.Vienna after 50 years of quiescence as well as the rest of Europe re-entered history.
1945was considered Stunde  nul or Zero hour by Germans. 
In WW1 Serbia lost half it male population between ages of 18 to 55 and resolved nothing. New countries that emerged from collapsed empires in 1918 were poor, unstable and insecure with no restoration of international  stability and equilibrium. Internal conflicts accompanied the collapse of European economy. The 30s were for Auden "low dishonest decade" Spain's Civil War. Stefan Sweig and Walter Benjamin took their own lives. The loss in European Civilization was implied in the works of Carl Kraus and Franz Kafka. Jean Renoir film "The Grand Illusion."
In the east was the peace of the prison yard under the Red Army .
East Europe Needed some sort of radical transformation. Communism may have been the wrong solution but it was responding to a dilemma that was real enough.
Western Europe had not liberated itself from Fascism alone could not keep Communism at bay.
European sea bourn empires had vanished back to the Europeana nuclei. Americanization of Europe of the 50s 60s is often exaggerated.
 Germany today like the rest of Europe is more conscious of 20C history than at any time in the past 50 years. WW2 was followed by civil wars and a social revolution, occupation eroded the legitimacy of local leaders.
Poland ,Baltic states Greece and Yugoslavia were occupied 3 times in 5 years.  with the Jews and Germans removed you had a very different social landscape.  
Under the Germans the Poles had a parallel underground of newspapers, schools and welfare and carried on outside the law at great personal risk.
Throughout German occupied areas everyone was afraid of everyone. Where Jews were stripped of business and property it was divided amongst Nazis, collaborators and friends. Returning survivors could not claim their property so many others were complicit in the Nazi genocide with wholesale de facto nationalization.  
Property seized from Sudeten German constituted a quarter of  Czechoslovakia's national wealth, their economy before 1937 had out performed Austria.
In liberated western Europe there was little German owned property for redistribution,
In 1941 Norway was occupied buy just 806 Nazi administrators while the German France only had 1500 to ensure compliance of 35 million population.  Contrast that to Yugoslavia where entire German divisions were needed just to contain the armed partisans.  In west Europe unless they were Jews or communist the population was left alone.  When the war ended Germany was in a state of total, social and economic collapse. 
It was Hitler as much as Stalin that drove a wedge into the continent.  Exiled governments in the west returned and were legitimate but in the east, they had all been swept away by the Nazi's transformative violence with an unrecoverable past.
Countries were occupied and then liberated by another occupier.  Greece, Yugoslavia, Poland or Ukraine had large numbers of real partisans. The Soviets did not like praise for  the partisan either anti Nazi or anti Communist.  Collaborator were those seen to work or sleep with the occupier and charged of treason.
In France you had a cycle of score settling with extra judicial killing of 1500 people. The Vichy reprisals surprised nobody. Many had not worked for the Nazis but for the Vichy regime. In northern Italy Emilia, Romagna and Lombardy 15000 were killed in the last few months of the war.  Belgium 265 and Netherland under 100 executed. There is some truth that women gave sexual services in exchange for food,  Jean Paul Satre described collaboration as submission. 
At this stage the first victims were minorities Jews were killed in Poland. In France and Prague returning victims had to fight squatters in their homes. 
In the East European States direction  of the economy did not start in 1945.  In   Liberation 
the Catholic church got of very lightly  in view of Pius XII warm relation with Fascists, and blind eye to Nazi crimes. General Lucius Clay was the US military commander. He found that amongst those associated with the Nazi's were the best qualified. Nazi teachers were removed, libraries were restocked and news print was only assigned to editors with genuine anti Nazi credentials 
Besides the well known Nuremberg trials, US French and British military courts tried lower down Nazis but most got off.   The Soviet went a lot further  by 1948 520000 civil servants were fired and "pro- communist replaced them.
1941-1942 60% of Switzerland's munitions industry,50% of their optical industry 40% engineering output was produced for Germany remuneration in gold. It was the Swiss authorities who asked that German passports indicate whether the holders were Jews. This stopped the Wehrmacht from invading the Swiss.
Swedish cooperation with the Nazis allowed Wehrmacht troops to start Operation Barbarossa.
1945 At  Volkswagen 91% of machinery survived the bombing.  The war time industries that Germany had invested in so heavily would lay their boom for the fifties.
One reason for food shortage in Europe was that they could no longer turn to eastern Europe's food granaries.
1947 Severe winter that froze canals and paralyzed rail networks and was followed by floods.

Playing the enemy : Nelson Mandela and the game that made the nation by John Carlin 2008 257pg

 This is the book that the movie Invictus 2009 was based on,by Clnt Eastwood starring Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon. 30/8/20

Mandela described apartheid as moral genocide. When he handed Pele a lifetime award he said "sport has the power to change the world"  He won over people who applauded his imprisonment, wanted him dead and planned to go to war against him.
Niel Barnad head of SA intelligence service. General Constant Viljoen head of the military during the worst years of the struggle.  Kobie Coetsee minister of justice.
The Springboks an the white national anthem were both symbols of apartheid appression.
 A victory against the New Zealand All Blacks at the Rugby world cup in SA could be used to unite the nation. 95% of the crowd would be white and mostly Afrikaners.
When PW Botha offered to free him if he would renounce  terrorism. His daughter Zindizi told a crowd in Soweto " as long as Aparthied exists the people are not free"  
Mandela's, Xhosa name was Rolihlalha which means trouble maker and he was the first to burn his passbook.  As president of the ANC youth league in the 50s he claimed he would be the first black president of S. Africa.  In jail he decided to get to know the Afrikaner mentality, strudied Afrikaans and the jail warders served him very well in this aim.  
Afrikaners were apartheids lords and protectors; they were Calvinist of the Dutch Reformed Church and their secular religion was rugby. The opium of the Boers.
Law of Common Purpose. When a black collaborator with the white regime was killed, in 1976.  26 in the Uppinton demonstration were rounded up and sentenced to jail.
 1953 Verwoed as minister of Native Affairs drew up a school curricula  "for the nature and requirement of the black people'' The Pan African Congress PAC's  "one settler one bullet"main base was in Sharpville where 56 people were shot in the back in 1960 at a demonstration.
1980 to 1992 Neil Barnard was head of the National Intelligence Service. Only a political settlement could solve the problem. Mandela said he would not break with the Communist party. The fact that Botha was prepared to meet Mandela indicates that Botha could see no solution to the last 4 years of rioting. Botha had already indicated to the Afrikanes that they have to be pragmatic and "adapt or die"
Frederick van Zyl Slabbert headed the Progressive Party leading Afrikaans intellectuals against the current apartheidd situation. Breyten Breytenbach worked with him. Constand Viljoen became a general and the head of the SA defence force ,while Braam Viljoen his brother studied theology and came to destest the naive ,infantile biblical justification of apartheid.Went as  a delegation of 50 Afrikaans academics to Dakar to talk to the ANC. He joined the Institute of Democracy for SA set up by vanZyl Slabbert.
Mandela was released from Jail 3 months after the fall of the Berlin wall
1980 SADF joined with Jonas Savimbi's UNITA to fight the Marxist guerillas that came from Angola supported by Cuba with money from Russia. SA also raided against ANC bases in Botswana , Mozambique and Lesotho.
When Chris Hani was assassinated it was thought that the black population would cause a blood bath. Chris Hani was the leader of the Communist Party and the one who potentially was capable of being Mandela's deputy. Mandela quick;y went on TV to tell his supporters that he was sad. A white foreigner had killed him but a white Afrikaans woman realized and managed to get the killer's car number and he was picked up very quickly.  From then on Mandela was basically the one in charge of the country.
The negotiation at the World Trade Centre the AWB led by Eugene Terblanche broke in and decided not to create bloodshed and went away.The date of election was set there.April 27th 1994. Mandela kept the presidential staff for the next 5 years.
Constand Viljoen with 3 retired generals was brought to meet Mandela who pointed out that going back would cause a blood bath. Mandela saw in Constand  a man of honesty and integrity and courage. The Freedom Alliance was now working with Inkhata against the ANC that was taking the country into a civil war of power struggle.
When de Klerk received the Nobel prize he did not apologize for the tragedy of aparheid.
Mandela convinced the ANC that 2 national anthems were necessary, as you don't address people's brains but their hearts. A new national flag was chosen. Mandela said that the Springboks had to remain and the colors now had to represent all S.Africans, but they had to convince Afrikaners to put away the old flag. Morne du Plesis brought a neighbour to teach the Xhosa needed to sing the new national anthem. Mandela met up with Francios Pienaar and met the whole team before they played Australia and won.
Mandela arrived by helicopter at Silvermine where the Springboks were staying and told them the entire SA population wanted them to win.  Morney du Plessis took them on a trip to see Robben Island.
Mandela told supporters that Nation building comes with a cost and he wanted them to support the Springboks. Mandela's guards played touch rugby to learn and understand the game.
On the day of the game the Sewetan called the team  Amabokoboko and the ANC Youth League called for the team to bring home the cup. Black kids knew the names of the team members. At the last minute Mandela called Louis Luyt to get him a Springbok No 6  Francois Pinaars,the captains jersey. "Viva the Bokke " this was heard in black areas it came from supporting the Cuban revolution.
A rendition of "Shoshalozo" had just become a hit by Dan Moyana and he and he sang on stage with all joining before the NZ haka.  A SAA jumbo flew at 500 feet over the Ellis Park stadium  twice with "Good Luck Bokke"
The game was won by SA 15 -12 only with drop kicks by Joel Stransky and penalties and nobody could gain tries. Where old SA flags seen at the opening none were visible at the end. Mandela had liberated  the Afrikaners from fear. The following Sunday he visited the DRF church in Pretoria and spoke to the faithfull in Afrikaans. He beleived there were better angels in all people
2007 the Springboks again won the Rugby World Cup by beating England
2007 In London a bronze statue was unveiled of Mandela next to Churchill and Lincoln. 

Sunday, August 30, 2020

Raquela a woman of Israel by Ruth Gruber 1978 326pg

 A biography of  nurse who lived through Israel's History 24/12/19

1929 Bet Hakerem was attacked in the Arab uprising  from Deir Yassin.  Moses Montefiore from England  and Judah Touro from the USA both contributed to building outside the Old City of Jerusalem
 By 1936 70 000 Jews had come from Germany. Sephardic Jews name children after both living and dead. 50 000 Palestinian Jewish men and women joined the British army.
Erich Mendelson designed Hadassah hospital, Mount Scopus. Henrietta Szold had Hans Beyth directing youth Aliyah which was set up in 1933. Children came from Europe as well as Arab lands where there were Nazi sympathizers.
1860 Szold born in Baltimore, she later became the first lady of Palestine. She worked with Louis Ginzburg till he met a young wife and so she came to Palestine in 1909 and in 1927 became a member of the Zionist executive council. Recha Freier in Berlin started Youth Aliyah.
The Jewish Brigade was in the British Eight Army fighting under General Mark Clark in Italy. Ted Lurie was the Palestine Post correspondent.. Whitehall feared that the demobilized Jewish soldiers would use their skill to help Jews to reach Palestine.
1878 Petach Tikva started by Jerusalem Jews  for farming. James Tegart planned the forts for the British. From Kibbutz Yagur was used to free the Atlit refugees
1945 July Labour Party came to power in Britain, They kept the White Paper.
         Sept Bevin announced the Anglo American Committee. 1947 Feb 15th Bevin announced that Palestine was being turned over to the UN. After American colonies and Ireland, Palestine was Britain's biggest failure.
Haim Yassky director of Hadassah Medical organization killed in the attack on the bus. The Black and Tan policemen who had once suppressed the Irish were sent to Palestine. After the war a pogrom occurred in Kielce Poland.
The King David Hotel - Sir John Shaw refused to accept the telephone warning to evacuate because of a bomb.
Raquel Prywes trained to be a nurse during the WW2 period,. Raquela  worked as a midwife in Atlit and later in Cypress
YMCA building was build by Americans and UNSCOP met there in April1947. Ein Hashofet named for Louis Brandeis.
There were 2 ships that carried a total of 15 000 refugees and Ben Gurion agreed that they would go to Cypress so that the British did not have to use violence to transfer them. Because of a danger of typhus in the camps, Golda went to Cypress and managed to convince the British to let mothers with babies under a year to get out she met Sir Godfrey Collins who was in charge. 25000 babies had been born on Cypress.
1948 Feb Palestine Post building blown up by Arabs.
When Israel declared independence women and children were allowed to move to Israel but Bevin would not let men of fighting age leave there for another 7 months till Britain finally recognized Israel.in Dec 1948.
When the Jews started winning and going on the offensive the security council called for a 4 week ceasefire. But they also kept control of the amount of food coming into Jerusalem.
1949 July last peace agreement with Syrian sighed under Dr Ralph Bunch 20 month after the war began and 6 thousand Israelis dead.
Carp was an important part of the diet in the early days. Development towns didn't succeed as there was no work there.
In the 1956 Egyptians were captured with Arabic copies of Hitler's Mein Kampf.
1961 June Hadassah Hospital Ein Kerem opened. 1958 Eisenhower had to send troops to save Lebanon from Nasser trouble making. Britain had permission to fly in troops over Israel to save Jordan from Nasser's subversive acts.
Golda had a daughter on kibbutz Rivivim who miscarried and almost died.
Raquela's son in law was Gideon Weiler who died in action his father was Progressive Rabbi Moses Cyrus Weiler of SA.
Yosef Tekoah was Israel's rep at UN and became President of Ben Gurion University in the Negev.

Comment from Jules Miller
Erich Mendelson the architect who designed the Hadassah hospital also designed the Shoken Department stores for the Shoken family in Germany who are the founders & owners of Haaretz Newspaper in Israel .  these buildings were highly acclaimed architecture before WW2 .    

The YMCA building in Jerusalem was designed by  Auther Looms Harmon the same architect the designed the Empire State Building in New York .

Rabbi Weiler actually lost both his sons on the same day at the start of the Yom Kippur war , one on the Golan Heights & one in Sinai.

 An Additional interesting bit of information is that when the Irgun blew up the Acre prison in 1947 allowing over 350 prisoners to escape , they had previously acquired plans of the prison from the British Architect who was a close friend of one of the leaders of the Irgun .

Thursday, August 20, 2020

The seed is Mine by Charles van Onselen 520pg 1996 South Africa

This is one of the most fascinating South African History Books  10/10/13
 
 The book starts at about the time of the Mfacane describing the movement of the African families who originated in the Calodon River area and moved into the Southern Transvaal in the area between the London diamond field, Klerksdorp, Walmeranstad and as far as Lichtenberg which we call the Triangle..
Except for the crowded reserves all land was allocated to whites and blacks lived as squatters and made contracts with farmers to be sharecroppers or paid for  the use of the farmers veld to pasture there  cattle and sheep.
1826 After Shaka destruction of the tribes around Zululand and they formation of the Zulu people The mfacane (the scattering) Mzilakatze broke away from the Zulu tribe and drove through the Transvaal destroying the Sotho and Twana tribe leaving the area vacant.
1836  The Great Trek, Dutch speaking farmers only knew extensive farming, their population had enlarged so greatly that they trekked from the Cape to find new farming area.  Initially the white farmers had made a living from hunting the wildlife in the area and keeping cattle. They had no experience in agriculture.  Even Paul Kruger the President of the Zuid Afrikaans Republic realized that land had to be preserved for wildlife and he preserved  what later became the Kruger Park.
Kas kept every receipt, note, account or document that was ever given to him and on this the book was written each receipt is the story of a cow ,ox ,wagon, plough that was bought.  There are descriptions of surviving the droughts, followed by rainy seasons and floods that brought locusts. He had records of how many bags of produce he had sold each year. 
1892 Rindapest wiped out a high percentage of cattle, buffalo, giraffe etc. blacks blamed white and whites blamed blacks for it , vaccine against it came later.  Cattle from Northern Rhodesia were not affected and there, Jewish traders set up in Northern Rhodesia to buy up cattle and drive them south.
 Southern blacks all had an oral history that was handed down and for example we know that certain tribes moved southwards and crossed the Zambezi the year of the big stars which was Haileys Comet.  This virus wiped out a large % of ungulates and when you consider that all goods were transported by oxen you can imagine how badly it hit the economy
The Rindepest is discussed and the fact that some black farmers had cattle that survived.   The authorities did not know how to deal with this which was a respiratory virus and dipping the cattle made it even worse.  This memory is also one of the many reasons why the ANC government wanted an African solution to AIDS.   
1900 How that area was affected by the Boer war where whites left their farms and black were conscripted to be transport riders, cooks etc.
In this period Kas had an Afrikaans partner Swanapoel and they were transport riders taking bags of grain to the minefields on ox-wagon, this was a good partnership and Swanapoel helped him in many ways and it was a solid friendshop.  This type of transporting before the days of the trains is documented in Jock of the Bushveld by Fitzpatrick. In summer the wagon would sink into the muddy roads and in winter there was not grass on the side of the road to feed the oxen.
Then WW1 which put up the price of wool so many farmers moved into sheep. He also discusses the fact that there were rebels in this area  who were against SA supporting the British. Botha and Smuts  drove the Germans out of South West Africa which became a SA mandate.  Interestingly that Afrikaans became the most important language in what is today Namibia 
 1919 The  flu epidemic which affected Europe and American troops returning from the war is well known, a lot of people in the Triangle died.  Today we know it got to SA by migrating  birds.
 
1922 He mentions the  miner strikes and the shootings, mostly in Fordsburg but my grandmother talked about it affecting Dornfontein, Johannesburg.  Smuts put it down. White miners didn't want blacks to be employed in the mines.
1930s After the war there was booms and recessions in the price of agricultural goods. But the worst period was the drought and depression and starvation. You had poor whites who turned to blacks for help.  Kas spoke Afrikaans and could read basic Afrikaans.  Some whites spoke Sotho.
From the 30s the Native Laws started making life difficult for blacks. He mentions that the Stern family owned land in Scheitser Reynicka and their daughter was Irma Stern.Famous artist) The influence of the Communist Party and Labour Party and members to Parliament that represented natives is discussed.
Whites had access to credit later at the Land Bank but blacks had to look to English, Indian or Jewish traders for credit and carry them till the harvest.
  Interesting that while you had the Dust Bowl in Oklahoma etc.  the same time of dust storms affected the Transvaal, and people had to take shelter in the huts during a dust storm.
One year he bought a plow on credit from an English shopkeeper and as a result of the drought there was no money to pay at  the end of the season. When he was subpoenaed he brought his 6 plow donkeys to the store.  All the debtors were at the store at the same time and the owner said he is the only man of honour.  He told Kas to keep his donkeys but the store went bankrupt and closed. 2 years later. After a good harvest Kas  found out which farm the man  had moved to and went to pay money owing. The ex-merchant was amazed and gave him back 30 shillings.  Had Kas paid at the time the money would have gone to the Englishman's creditors. 
 
1939 Tractors started arriving in the late 30s but with the beginning of the WW2 new ones or spare parts were not available and petrol  was  rationed. The government encouraged farmers to used draught animals. So farmers found both livestock and crops received better prices, this was the case for a good few years. At this stage he learned the tecnique of double plowing to reduce the weeds.  Sunflower seed and beans were also in great demand.
Post war tractors started taking the role of the tenant farmer and the Afrikaner nationalism started affecting the relationship between whites and blacks.  One thing that surprises me is that Kas knew the value of reading and writing and yet did not encourage  his children and give them a  chance to go to school. It was mostly the wives who saved up money by breeding pigs and chickens and collecting dry cow pats for sale as fuel to pay for clothes and for the children's school.
1947 the Afrikaners with government help started setting up stores to replace the others traders, these were not successful but they were encouraged to boycott the Indian traders. Poor whites would trade with these shops through the back door. Blacks were hardly aware of this and it was dropped soon afterwards.
  The Afrikaner policy was "Die Kaffier in sy plek, die Koelie uit die land"(The black in his place the Indian off the land).  At this time blacks started feeling the effect of Nationalist bigotry, when his kid was ill he asked the landlord to take him to the doctor, the landlord refused to help and said he could only use his cart for work purposes and would not lend it to him. He had to turn to the neighbor for help his kid almost died. An Afrikaans women who he had in the past given rides on a cart to town and would chat  to him on the way, would now sit behind him.
It now reached a stage that through government policy black were no longer wanted as share cropper but as wage labourers on the farms. This was after a particularly good season where Kas earned well. So rich blacks were not liked and if they were just lazy they also were not wanted.
At one time he had an arrangement with the manager of a wealthy black who owned land.  In the middle of the season the black owner plowed in his seedlings and replanted. It showed that Whites at least had a greater respect for the rules than rich blacks. It was always accepted that the status of the land would change only after the season and crop had come in.
-----------------------------------------
 1950s when the Nationalist government was busy with its ideology of Apartheid and Dr. Verwoerd was Minister of Native Affairs. Slowly he wanted to remove "squatters" from white farms and turn them into labourers.
Blacks had to get Passbooks showing where they were living, this also started regulating the number of blacks entering the industrial cities as unemployed blacks were not allowed to reside in cities. Even at this stage when he took bags of corn to the Government Co-op they paid him without saying a word and asked him for his address as he was paid the "voorskot" and the posted him a cheque for the "agterskot" which he never received when he never marketed directly.
When Kas said he was born before the Rindapest the government official said that meant that he no longer had to pay poll tax and was entitled to a small state pension. However if he had a team of oxen he was not entitled to the pension.  

Aaron Cohan ran a trading store and black were scared to allow their daughters to work for him as he had black mistresses.  Hersh was a land speculator and owned a large property Rietvlei  in the area and asked Cohan to keep an eye on it.
Cohen got hold of a black manager who brought in 5 or so extended black families and later the  widow Ma Hersh would be phoned every year and would count the bags of grain produced and send it to the co-op in her name. The black farmers might steal a certain amount of sweet corn at night but her share was very large and was not keen on the new Apartheid laws but eventually she had to comply especially after a bad season and the black tenants had to leave.
Kas also had skills of  medicine man  and a lot of people consulted him but he only took money from people when they were cured .  An Afrikaans women from Caltonville had dismissed her maid in a very acrimonious situation and came  for help as her house was now haunted by a tokalosh which caused the crockery to rattle.  Kas gave her a mixture to spread around the house and she sent him 5 Pound in gratitude.  Caltonwille was a mining town and when the mine pumped the water out it resulted in earth movement and local tremors and later the town started collapsing with sink holes.

At this period the patriarchal system was already breaking down and the children went off to work in cities where they had a better social life.  Thus the rural black family had the grandparents and grandchildren farming.  Many children were closer ho their grandparents than their parents. Kas had 3 wives  and  8 children.
If a poor white bought a piece of land and had a mortgage if he got a good share cropper who would make the land pay without him having capital to develop it. After a few years with field having been cleared the farmer might be able buy a tractor and work it himself. Many whites worked on mines and were absentee landlords as they never had capital or the knowledge to get their farms they had inherited to pay..

Kas bought a tractor by selling cattle which he had trouble finding grazing for, but now depended on a son to drive the tractor, just at a time when the rains were poor in the 1960s
He went through stages of owning a truck or car but as he could not drive this himself and depended on his sons who battled to get drivers licenses a problem being semi-literate. 
The book mentions that children who had had a proper apprenticeship with him as farmers, blacksmiths or saddle and shoe repairing succeeded in the proletariat world those that left the farm too young and were unskilled labourers didn't.  One granddaughter got herself a job in car spares for example.

But the Apartheid system was closing in and he ended up on small a plot allocated at Legde an area under the Chieftainess Cathorine.In reality he was a Sotho and this was a Tswana area,but he was enough of a chamelian.Blacks were not as tribal as the whits throught.  He went into goat breeding as their was pasture on the mountain nearby. Blacks moved to the Homeland areas as it offered schools to their children.
1975 the government Bantustan policy came about and Bafutatswana was declared under Chief Magope. The crater where cattle was pastured was to be turned into a game-park and Sun City casino was to be build. The South African government never allowed casino's but independent black areas could. Sol Kursners project did provide employment for many in the area. 
1976 the Soweto Riots began and you have some movement of blacks back into the country.

The first time he bought a tractor his sons or the person paid to drive it did not understand the mechanics. Later on he was able to hire someone who could keep this working and his 5th tractor he hired out and received a % of crops grown. 

In his late 80s he was still active as a farmer but the land available was small holding that blacks in Ledig in the Bantustan of Bafutaswana never had an inclination to cultivate.  When he planted corn the poor starving neighbours would take so he had to plant sunflower . Women and children were always prepared to help in the harvest of corn or sorghum as the were food but were not so willing on cash crops.
 When he had been in the triangle and hurt his shoulder he went to Dr. Huddleson who had arranged for surgery in hospital but now he had no personal connections and he was going blind through cataracts.  He was not prepared to undergo surgery offered.
Conclusion
Thus in the 1930s SA like Argentina was one of the G countries in the world, the Apartheid course that she took up under the Nationalist Afrikanerdom government stunted SA and by the time a black democracy came about it was too late.
Kas was over 90 when he died and the author describes that he was the only white man who stood at the back of the funeral.
 

Books by Sabastian Barry who was born in Dublin in 1955.

 A  Long Long Way by Sabastian Barry 2005   292pg 18/09/2026  A story of the    Royal Dublin Fussileers. in the war 1914 to 1918 The book st...