7/5/02 grammatical error (German language)

Vea Culpa, Corrections editor
Friday, 5 July 2002 George Smith's 7/5/02 column carries the headline "Die Informationen macht frei." This led Vmyths reader Christian Keydel to make a grammatical observation:

Now I don't know who created this, but unfortunately it is an unsuccessful attempt to maybe rephrase "Arbeit macht frei" — the cynic slogan new 'inhabitants' in German concentration camps were greeted with at the entrance during WW II. Cynic, but at least grammatically correct. The problem with the above is that 'information' is plural in German, so [Smith] translated it — quite correct - to "Die Informationen." But the verb, 'machen' = 'to make' keeps its native case in plural, so you could only say "Die Informationen machen frei" or "Informationen machen frei."

Smith acknowledges the error. "Got me on the improper conjugation of the verb! I may have been OK in high school German but it is my shame that I winged it for Vmyths. Cynically and philosophically correct, I nevertheless bow and apologize for the error."