The German-American Press

On the heels of this operation, reporters from the new Soviet
state alerted readers about devastating starvation in the German
colonies in Russia. Immediately the Dakota Freie Presse joined
hands with the churches in organizing the Volga Relief Society, the
Black Sea Relief Society, and the Russian Relief Package Company
among others. Through its travel and banking arrangements, the
Dakota Freie Presse advertised that it would send money orders to
any country in Europe, including the Soviet Union. In conjunction
with such efforts, the paper also established a relationship with the
Kaufhaus des Westens in Berlin (today Ka De We) which offered
packages that were advertised in the paper and could be bought by
sending money directly to the paper, which wired it to the Berlin
department store. Immediately Ka De We dispatched the ordered
packages to the given addresses in the Soviet Union.17 Reports
arriving from recipients indicated that this relief system worked
without a hitch. In 1924 the Dakota Freie Presse boasted of being
the first paper published in the United States to be allowed re-entry
to Soviet Russia.
In conclusion, then, we must credit the editors of newspapers
for the Germans from Russia with a remarkable contribution to
the cohesion of a worldwide community of people with a common
heritage. The religious affiliation, the geographic site of settlement
in the Russian empire, and the far-flung homesteading of peoples
in the New World all point to the rapid disappearance of a
special ethnic group. Volga Germans disliked Black Sea Germans
and vice versa, while Catholics, Evangelicals and the pietistic
groups squabbled among themselves. The Mennonites and their
subcategories, including the Hutterites, tended to shift for themselves
and forget their common German-Russian heritage.  Only the
newspapers, in a manner of speaking, were able to bridge the gaps,
abstaining from the ever-recurring religious controversies and sifting
through local politics to come up with a focus on which all Germans
from Russia could rally. For this we salute and commemorate
the Dakota Frete Presse and, in a more limited way, the Lincoln
(Omaha) Welt-Post.

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