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democracy, but do no longer. The list is impressive: loss of habeas corpus for everyone charged under security certificates; no trial by jury for them; the banning of dissenting opinion on a historical topic; secret ‘renditions’ and torture of political prisoners held without charge; evasion of the Geneva Convention; illegal spying and police harassment of writers expressing unpopular views, and probably other things that we do not yet even know about.
    The people like Lesley Sheppard, Elizabeth O’Connor, Alfred de Zayas, Nikolai Tolstoy, Alan Samson, Patrick Martin, Ken Whyte, John Fraser, Nelson Doucet and who knows how many others, whose vocation and/or duty it is to report on the state ofour freedoms, and who are one way or another, politely or otherwise warned to desist, may in fact desist.
    And if they do, we will end up knowing only what we are told to know, and nothing more.

    5: L OCAL D EATH R ATES IN G ERMANY , 1946–50
    Most reports show a high death rate. Few of the towns reporting give complete population statistics. Most of the towns that report death rates near or below the 12.1%% rate given for 1947 by the Statistisches Bundesamt also display characteristics that demonstrate their unreliability, e.g. Karlsruhe and Bonn.
    Death statistics for one Austrian and nine German cities and towns for certain critical years appear below. Four were issued by the authorities in the places concerned, the rest by other authorities and observers as listed. Those that accord with the general death rates calculated in Chapter VI are in Table A. Those in conflict appear in Table B with the author’s comments.

    TABLE A
Place
Year
Population
Deaths
Death rate
Bad Kreuznach
1946
26,096
1,010
38.7%%
(French zone)
1947
27,233
743
27.3%%
1948
26,768
637
23.8%%
1949
27,000 (ca)
569
21.1%%
Berlin
1945-46
2,600,000

46.2%%
1947
3,000,000

28.5-29.0%%
Brilon
1945-46
71,110
2,224
31.3%%
Königsberg
1945-47
100,000
75,000
750.0%%
Landau
1946
19,910
787
39.5%%
(French zone)
1947
20,802
563
27.0%%
1948
21,694
513
23.6%%
1949
22,426
462
20.6%%
1950
23,188
485
20.9%%
Marktoberdorf
1946
4,318
119
27.6%%
(US zone)
1947
4,557
112
24.6%%
1948
4,648
80
17.2%%
1949
4,913
121
24.6%%
1950
5,085
138
27.1%%
Vienna (Austria)
1946
1,900,000

27.0-35.0%%
Comments on Table A
    Brilon: City officials in 1995 were asked by the author for death statistics of their city for 1945–49, and replied that they were understaffed and could not fulfil the request. The author, during research in Ottawa, came upon a copy of a three-page report made by the official of the City of Brilon in 1946, and given to the Canadian Military Governor. This shows the death rate reported above. A copy has been sent to Brilon. Landau: 1946 population averaged from (January 1946) 19,370 and (October 1946) 20,450. 1947 population averaged from (1946) 19,910 and (1948) 21,694. All statistics from Landau Town Archives, Landau, Rheinland-Pfalz.
    Berlin: Among the 3 million people of Berlin the death rate in May of 1946 was three times the pre-war rate, i.e. around 37%%. In 1947, according to Chancellor Adenauer, it was around 29%%. (Adenauer, Speech to Swiss Parliamentary Chamber, March 1949, and Ernst-Günther Schenck, Das Menschliche Elend im 20. Jahrhundert. Eine Pathographie der Kriegs-, Hunger- und poli-tischen Katastrophen Europas , p. 68.) In Königsberg, taken over by the Soviets, over 70 per cent of the population died in two years (ibid., p. 79). 12 Cannibalism was reported to have occurred among some of them. Similar conditions prevailed in other areas of East Prussia, West Prussia, near Frankfurt-am-der-Oder and in many Silesian towns, according to Dr Schenck.
    Marktoberdorf: Complete statistics for this small town near Augsburg are available from the Bayerische Statistisches Landesamt and from the Statistical Service in the Rathaus of Marktoberdorf. Average for five years equals 24.2%%.
    Augsburg: The Augsburg city archives do not have any figures for 1946, and