ABSTRACT
The Special Projects Division (SPD) selected Captain Walter Schoenstedt, an exiled German novelist and former newspaper editor, to assemble a team of carefully chosen POWs, all former professors and writers who had exhibited anti-Nazi behavior since their captivity. When the Factory opened for business, it began its work by obtaining samples of the seventy German POW newspapers. Nearly half of the camp papers were found to be pro-Nazi, and only three were anti-Nazi. The papers, such as the mimeographed Drahtpost, which sold for ten cents a copy at the Algona, Iowa, camp, featured camp news, sports, humor, a calendar of events, crossword puzzles, obituaries, and even classified advertisements. The competitor to these paper being conceived at the Factory would be named Der Ruf (the Call). Copies of Der Ruf were burned at Camp Trinidad in Colorado. The existing POW newspapers certainly remained viable during Der Rufs rise.
