Word: kastner
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Dates: during 1950-1950
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Pale, plain, 30-year-old Ralph Kastner did not have much use for his father. Socially and politically, father Hermann was an opportunist. After Ralph's mother had divorced him in 1944, father Hermann managed a retrial which declared his wife guilty, hounded her and their daughter out of Dresden. When he married again, Hermann chose blowzy, peroxide-blonde Trude Mirtsching, a stenographer with excellent Soviet connections. A year later, conniving Hermann had worked up from a minor political boss to be Deputy Chairman of the Economic Commission, forerunner of the East German government...
...Bags of Candy. Meanwhile, son Ralph plugged away at his puny post in the Dresden Volkssolidarität (People's Solidarity), a Communist welfare organization. Life was hard for Ralph Kastner, and twice Hermann helped him out. The day before currency reform, Hermann gave Ralph 1,000 marks; next day the value of the money was cut 90%. Once when Ralph pleaded that his children needed help, Hermann sent his chauffeur around with two bags of candy...
...Days of Sick Leave. Hermann Kastner heard from Ralph sooner than he had expected. That night Ralph, broadcasting over the U.S. radio station in Berlin, told Hermann a few of the things he had not got around to on the telephone: "What do you say to the starvation rations in the Soviet zone? How can you reconcile it with your conscience that tens of thousands of innocent people . . . are kept in prison and tortured to death . . . I suppose I could have told you all this in Dresden, but then your wife, Trude, what with her excellent connections with the Soviet...
...Hermann Kastner decided to take sick leave for a few days. In the Communist high command they began to mutter that he might have to be replaced: he did not quite "measure up to his responsibilities...