The Press: Speak Up!

None of Vienna’s eight cautious dailies mentioned the life-&-death news of food and fuel. Instead, they growled over old bones, squabbling about who was to blame for Anschluss (the German seizure of the country) eight years ago.

Last week, in an interview in Die Presse, Austria’s President Karl Renner begged his country’s timid dailies to speak up.

“Through the lack of clarity of the Potsdam decisions,” Dr. Renner said, “our national wealth and resources appear to be seriously threatened. . . . I assume that the occupying powers will not make difficulties for our press when things are discussed openly. . . . I consider most things that fill our daily papers irrelevant and unimportant in comparison. . . .”