Belated Amends

Adolf Hitler exploded indignantly when Carl von Ossietzky, famed German pacifist, was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize while still a prisoner of the Third Reich (TIME, Nov. 30 et seq.). The decision of the awarders was reviled as "an insult to the German people." Nazis were forbidden thereafter to accept a Nobel Prize, were told that in future the Government would award similar prizes for Germans only.

While this dispute was raging, Pacifist Ossietzky, seriously ill with tuberculosis after his repeated incarcerations and internments, was being closely guarded in a Berlin sanatorium. Rumors were flying that the Government had refused to let him have the $40,000 prize money that was due him. After that Ossietzky faded from the news.

Last week newshawks were allowed to see him as he lay in striped pajamas on his sickbed. Hollow-eyed and pale, Ossietzky knew that if he got himself imprisoned again, it would be his death. He gave a buttery account of the gracious, paternal fashion in which the Government had looked after him:

His prize money had been turned over to him in full. Government bigwigs had even saved him from being fleeced by a scalawag lawyer to whom he had entrusted the fund. He had been released from police supervision in the spring, and moved at his own request to a small, private sanatorium which specializes in tuberculosis treatment. His health had improved wonderfully. His wife was living with him in the sanatorium. He was training under his physician, Dr. Boquet, to become a medical photographer. Yes, he was still a pacifist, but felt hopeful that if he kept his promise not to engage in pacifist or Communist agitation the German Government might let him spend the winter in the Swiss Alps and then return to the Fatherland.

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