LETTER FROM GERMANY

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 1, Issue 82, 1 November 1939, Page 3

LETTER FROM GERMANY

AVERSION TO WAR NO CASUALTY LISTS A private letter -written during I lie .second week of the war by a German living in a town in Western Germany leveals some interesting sidelights on the conditions prevailing. He says:— "Food was extremely bad and scarce during the first few days of the war. Now it has slightly improved. People are very depressed. They still listen eagerly to foreign broadcasts. So far, wireless sets have not boon confiscated. "We listened in to the Austrian refugees' vow of vengeance. Foreign stations should improve their pro-J paganda against Hitler. They should; reply immediately to the mendaci-i ous German news. The broadcasts ofj records of Hitler's speeches from | France were very improssive. The.v j ought to go on. ! ".Someone gave me a leaflet thatj fell from the air. These leaflets have, an effect. Mine found its way to j me from a town about !(> miles olf. j They are so clearly printed that it 1 is not even necessary to pick them ! up. You can read them as they lie 1 on the ground. j "Butter, fat and oil are practical-j !y unobtainable. It is no longer) possible to buy fresh lish or even j smoked fish. Boys of the "Hitler j Youth" aged fourteen or fifteen go! about giving adults orders about j' blacking-out their homes. . . . The J * fact that almost all the higher off-- i. cials of the party have still got their jobs and have not been called up does not improve the altitude of ' the general public towards the Nazi* "Many women were quite desperate when the final mobilisation began. On Saturday, August 2(5, there, were scenes of open protest in the J streets. Women refused to let their 'ueri go until military officials o:' » high rank appeared and they ha.to. Quite a number of men failed i

r to report for service with the colours. They were at once arrested and sent away. Their families do not know where they are. In a small town nearby a women went mad when the police came to take her husband away. "In a rural district not far from here a pregnant woman drowned . herself after her husband had been ( taken off. There is the case of a man who was at I,he front for four years in the last war. He refused to report for service this time. He was shot, and his wife was informed that her husband had been sentenced to death and that the sentence was carried out on such and such a date .... "No casualty lists are. published and it is forbidden to wear mourn-i .... During' the last few days 'til the civilians who were left here received evacuation orders. I hope and pray that we shall soon hear J more from France and England. I\S hat is the trouble there?" I