(Deutsche Welle Chinese website) At 4:00 pm local time on September 9, 1976, the Chinese official issued an obituary, announcing the death of Chairman Mao Zedong of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China at 0:10 that day.
The commentary of "Der Spiegel" written by founder Rudolf Augstein on September 12, 1976 was titled "Helmsman Mao - Socialism rather than freedom." The article reads:
“A world without hunger, a world without waste, without the depletion of resources, a world without capitalist exploitation, a world of solidarity and mutual assistance, all without the expense of an underclass or ‘class’ that is almost destined to be exploited: this is the model of Mao’s socialism.”
The price of such a socialism is the sacrifice of freedom.
"This is the price: the freedom to do and not to do, the freedom to write and think, was taken away not only from Chiang Kai-shek's gangster-like local governors, not only from the warlords and vampires of the old regime, but also from all those who had enjoyed the light and warmth of this freedom. The freedom of alternative ideas was eliminated. As the anarchist Sartre once mocked, ideas were crammed into people's brains like pebbles."
"Only Mao knows who is deviating from the mainstream line and what is the mainstream line. Communists who deviate from the line are labeled as heretics of the Inquisition and paraded through the streets on a pillar of shame. Thousands of flowers are encouraged to bloom, but they wither on the garbage heap of history."
“The turmoil, the constant unrest, the upheaval in the fabric of society, became the primary civic duty, the constant revolution, the constant disruption of what had just been established.”
The article reads: "Is it just because of the distance and lack of knowledge that we believe that this is socialism with a more human face than the great teacher Stalin?...Aren't millions of people sacrificed in China? They have not yet found their own Solzhenitsyn. Is the power struggle between the Communist leaders really conducted in the face of 'new people', or is it more like a secret bloody palace coup of the Manchu Dynasty? Hitler's deputy was at least not shot down on the way to England."
"In foreign policy, there are also question marks as big as a gallows. Those who receive Nixon with a cocktail of friendship: Is he still a revolutionary? Isn't he a poor 'revisionist', a typical pragmatic politician?"
“From the Middle Ages to the Age of Nuclear Bombs” and Mao’s Dark Side
An article entitled "The Death of the Great Helmsman" written by the newspaper's editor and historian Karl-Heinz Janßen in Die Zeit on September 17, 1976 stated:
"Friends and foes (except Taiwan's old enemies) paid their respects before a giant like Mao Zedong, or more so a giant country, who took the country from the Middle Ages to the age of the nuclear bomb."
"As a political leader, there is no dispute that Mao brought this country into another cultural stage. Mao saved a quarter of humanity from hunger and literature, from poverty, superstition and illiteracy. He tamed the Yellow River and turned the mountain deserts into gardens. As a result, he proudly ranks with those traditional Chinese heroic emperors and founding emperors. Like Mao, they, after a long war, finally crowned their glory with the foundation of peace."
"When it comes to Mao's achievements, it is impossible not to mention his dark side. In the bloody class struggle in the first few years after 'liberation', hundreds of thousands, even millions, were victims. A strict system - mutual informing, ideological indoctrination, brainwashing, self-criticism, forced labor, any idea Freedom was nipped in the bud, hampering any creativity. Lack of rational thinking, illusions, and rashness led to the disastrous consequences of the Great Leap Forward, an anti-authority campaign directed by Mao that pushed the country to the brink of civil war."
The article reads: "Especially because his movement to create a 'new man' has not been completed. Suppose he has created a 'new man' - a person who is selfless and willing to sacrifice all his energy to serve the people, who contributes a lot and is satisfied as long as he gets a little, without jealousy or self-interest. , giving up personal freedom so that the country can be free - if there had been such a "new man", Mao could have abdicated 20 years ago, and now Mao's willpower may allow the people to move mountains with buckets, but it cannot change the old man Adam."
"This revolutionary, party chairman, and national leader does not conform to any conventional form of historical judgment. This is of course related to the specific situation in China where he lives: a philosophy that is fundamentally different from Western thought; a China-centered worldview; proud trust in his own power; a sense of superiority to his own culture; and the particularity of Chinese characters."
"However, the bigger factor is Mao's own complex personality, which makes it difficult for others to understand the convolutions of his thinking. This man not only elevated contradictions to the core of his philosophy, but also highlighted contradictions from an early age. He has always been both a perpetrator and a dreamer, a revolutionary romantic and a pragmatist, a rough farmer and a meticulous scholar, humble in victory and arrogant in defeat, fiery as a tiger and as clever as a monkey, cruel and generous, elitist and egalitarian, both democratic and authoritarian."
“The Emperor is Dead” and Self-Exaltation
The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung article on September 10, 1976, written by the newspaper's China correspondent Ulrich Grudinski, titled "The Emperor is Dead - Mao Zedong: Self-improvement away from the masses" begins with the following words:
"Until the end, Mao Zedong loved a distorted view of history about the Chinese, a quarter of the world's population. He believed that the most 'outstanding' thing about the Chinese people was not their intelligence or vitality, but their 'poorness and whiteness.' He said that this seemed like a bad thing, but it was actually a good thing. Because: 'A blank piece of paper, without burdens, makes it easy to write the latest and most beautiful words, and to draw the latest and most beautiful pictures.'"
"This self-exaltation of consciously keeping a distance from the masses continued throughout Mao's life and actions. But in China's more than two thousand years of history, no ruler has so radically and seemingly irreversibly reshaped the destiny of his people as this farmer's son from Hunan. No. No ruler has used such strong and absolute power to present a new picture of China that left the world in awe and horror. When Mao was still hoeing in his father's rice fields, in the eyes of the world, China was still 'a country of coolies and a coolie among all countries.'
"There was only one Qin Shihuang. In 200 BC, like Mao, he swept away almost all of China's old society and traditions, leaving only very few aspects that were conducive to his purpose. Qin Shihuang even almost erased the past history by burning books and humiliating Confucian scholars in order to win a 'blank sheet' for his extreme reforms and the establishment of China's earliest unified country. Therefore. , he was also the only emperor whom Mao Zedong praised and admired. However, after the death of the First Emperor, his national concept quickly disappeared. Since Mao liked to compare himself with the First Emperor, there are also unknown comparisons in China after his death: It is not known whether Mao's theory can be sustained in the power struggle of his successors, or how long it can last. "
cold war
"Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung" wrote in a report dated September 9: "National and government leaders around the world expressed respect for Mao as a prominent figure of this century 'and one of the last leading figures in world politics in the past decades.' In their condolence messages, only Western political leaders have emphasized that Mao Zedong's lifetime achievements and his importance far beyond China and his important position in world politics. As of the evening, the communist countries had not issued an official position. News agencies and radio stations in the east only briefly reported the news of Mao's death, but there was no comment. "
"Federal President Scheer sent a message of condolences to the Beijing government in the name of the Federal Republic of Germany. He stated that with the death of Mao Zedong, the founder of the People's Republic of China and one of the most important figures of our time has left us. He participated in a decisive impact on the history of this century."
In a September 9 news from the German Press Agency published by the newspaper, a subtitle read "NATO did not react." It reads:
"NATO did not make an official response to Mao's death. For Mao and the Chinese government, NATO and the European Community were checks and balances on the growing Soviet military power. Unofficial news from NATO in Brussels on Thursday stated that after Mao's death, China's basic stance on Western security policies and NATO will remain unchanged..."
