THE NATIONS: Do Your Best, Max!

Communist prestige was at low ebb inWestern Germany. Yet in Düsseldorf last week a grinning, pinch-facedStalinist with silver-grey hair was carried like a hero on theshoulders of a cheering, surging mob. He was Max Reimann, Communistboss of Western Germany.

The new statute for an International Ruhr Authority (TIME, Jan. 10),although it allayed French fears, had not brought peace to the hummingRuhr. Britain, France and the U.S. were still bickering over how manyplants should be dismantled; plans for a three-zone merger (that is,for a merger of the French zone with Anglo-U.S. Bizonia) were stalled;and the Ruhr Germans themselves were making trouble. Some of thetroublemakers were Communists, but some were non-Communists whoconsidered themselves patriots.

Early this month, 5,000 Reds had jammed Düsseldorf’s Rheinhalle for ananniversary rally. Reimann, an able rab-blerouser, harangued them for2½ hours. He denounced the Ruhr statute as a means to “dismember theheart of Germany and make dollar slaves of German workers.” He shouted:”German politicians who today cooperate with the occupation forcesunder the Ruhr statute should not be surprised if they are consideredquislings by the German nation.” Then Reimann added that those whocooperate “may one day have to face reprisals.”

Reluctant Witnesses. The British authorities could not tolerate thissort of intimidation. They decided to bring Reimann to trial for”encouraging discrimination against Germans who cooperate with theAllies.” But they failed to police Düsseldorf’s courthouse adequatelyand the Reds went into their act; they turned the hearing itself into apropaganda demonstration.

Six hundred of them—pimply youths, tough thugs, wild-eyed women—pouredinto the courthouse lobby and up the stairway and massed outside thecourtroom. When Reimann appeared they howled an ovation. “Do your best,Max!” said a pink, pudgy hausfrau: “Just the way it was withHitler—first he was sentenced to jail, then he became our Führer. Iwonder if this won’t turn out the same way.”

Pleading that he had not had enough time to prepare a proper case,Reimann’s defense counsel asked for a postponement. The Britishmagistrate granted it with alacrity. The only recording of Reimann’sremarks at the Rheinhalle rally—a wire recording made by NorthwestGerman Radio—had been “erased” (demagnetized) to make room forsomething else. The non-Communist German reporters who had heard hisharangue were reluctant to testify.

Two of Reimann’s henchmen were fined $150 and $90 for holding apolitical meeting without a permit. When the day’s hearings were over,Reimann was carried off in triumph by Reds who sang the Internationaleand shouted: “Down with the Ruhr statute—down, down, down!” A ruefulBriton admitted: “It looks as if the trial is backfiring.”