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The pope offered insidious condolences – he prayed for the communist

If virtually every newspaper in the world has the same issue on the front page, something really big must have happened.

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The pope offered insidious condolences – he prayed for the communist

If virtually every newspaper in the world has the same issue on the front page, something really big must have happened. That was exactly the case on March 7, 1953 (also in the late editions of March 6, partly because of the time difference). But as similar as the subject of the reporting was, the direction of the reporting was just as different. This is shown by a look at DDR-Blätter and, for example, at WELT.

For example, the “New Germany”, the central organ of the communist state party of the GDR, grabbed the largest conceivable cutlery: “The heart of the greatest man of our epoch, Comrade J. W. Stalin, has stopped beating.” The entire front page was surrounded by a black frame , a huge photo of the deceased filled a good third of the available space.

As was the custom in the SED newspaper, official notices were simply printed: the notice of the Central Committee of Soviet Communists, the medical report on Stalin's illness and death, and two notices on the "establishment of a commission to prepare the funeral" and about the “endless stream of people” who said “farewell” in Moscow.

The cult of personality, which had characterized the Stalinist regime for more than a quarter of a century, reached new heights: “The death of comrade Stalin, who devoted his whole life selflessly to the service of the great cause of communism, is an extraordinarily heavy loss for the party for the working people of the Soviet country and the whole world.”

The “Berliner Zeitung”, the paper of the East Berlin SED organization, looked very similar: a black frame, a photo of Stalin – much smaller because of the smaller format – the communication from the Central Committee, the medical bulletin and the report about the commission : That's it.

When it came to the headline, however, the Bezirksblatt editors remained much more matter-of-fact than their ND colleagues: no “heart of the greatest man of our epoch” stopped beating. Rather, it simply read, boringly factually: "Communication of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the Council of Ministers of the USSR and the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet".

The front page of the "Neue Zeit", the newspaper of the long-established Eastern CDU in the GDR, looked different - but what was the reason? Excessive fidelity to the line as well as the exact opposite are possible: subversive exaggeration to the point of satire.

The usual elements of all GDR newspapers were of course also found: the black frame, the portrait photo of Stalin, at least the prelude to the official mourning notice. But how should one classify the headline?

"Stalin's heart has stopped beating," read the headline. A factual description, certainly, but still a noticeable difference to the headline of “New Germany”: without any adulation, but the six words could also be understood as an expression of relief.

WELT, the British-owned newspaper about to be sold to Axel-Springer-Verlag, did not have to make any reservations. "Stalin's successor: Malenkov", the editors reported on March 7th on the first page, after they had stated in the previous day's edition after the news from the early evening of March 5th: "Stalin's agony keeps the world in suspense".

That was right and wrong at the same time: when the editors wrote the headline, the Kremlin ruler was still alive; when WELT was delivered to the readers a few hours later, he had died in the meantime. But no one knew that outside of the closest circle in Moscow.

On March 7, WELT compiled reactions from all over the world under the heading “Obituaries” in the left-hand column of the first page. In Paris, the flag was flown at half-mast, and the head of state and prime minister sent routine condolence telegrams. It was reported from London that Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who was already highly skeptical about Stalin in the Second World War, would expressly not offer his condolences; only the British Ambassador in Moscow would express the regrets of Her Majesty's Government.

In the US, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, just six weeks in office but, as one of the top five US military personnel in World War II, also accustomed to deception and disappointment when dealing with Stalin, instructed his Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, to send a telegram . "Contrary to other protocol practices, the message of condolence should only consist of one sentence."

In Vienna, the government ordered mourning flags to be displayed. But that was hardly surprising, since parts of Austria were still occupied by Soviet troops.

The Pope decided on an almost insidious appreciation; he had the press office of the Vatican announce: Pius XII. prayed in "his private chapel for the salvation of Stalin's soul and included in his prayer a request for God's mercy for the deceased". The Kremlin ruler responsible for millions of murders certainly needed such intercessions.

WELT reported from Stockholm that the prime minister had said in a radio broadcast that "millions of people honor Stalin's memory, but millions more think back to him with great bitterness, even hatred."

The last report in the column came from South Korea's capital Seoul - the country that Stalin's protégé Kim Il Sung had waged a terrible war for almost three years. In view of this, the bitterness of the ruler's (by the way questionable) statement was understandable: "President Sygman Rhee regretted that Stalin died like a human being."

Only on page 13 did WELT continue the report on the title – after domestic politics, feuilleton, economy, the stock market page and sport, but at least before the classifieds and the mixed page. With an almost unnerving neutrality, the article summarized the events in Moscow and simply informed the readership about them. No frankly sharp word – the editors didn't need that.

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