CHANGED SCENE IN GERMANY

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24896, 8 June 1946, Page 7

CHANGED SCENE IN GERMANY

CLAIMS BY BRITISH COMMANDER

U.S. GENERAL FORECASTS LONG OCCUPATION (N.Z. Pres® Association— Copyright)

(Rec. 11 p.m.) LONDON, June 7. The scene in Germany had been transformed in the last 12 months, said Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir Sholto Douglas, Commander-in-Chief of the British Army of the Rhine, opening the Under Control” exhibition. lie added that the Wehrmacht had been disbanded, most of the displaced persons had been repatriated, the road and canal system? were at least partially restored, thorough deNazification had been carried out. and progress had been made in rebuilding government on sound lines. The British were still being called on for sacrifices and austerity, he said. Nevertheless, the measure of success to be obtained in Germany would have a vital influence on future peace. ’T know that I and my officers will continue to receive the support and help of the British people, without which we cannot complete the task,” he added.

Mr John Hynd, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, said: “An investment for peace is better and infinitely cheaper than an investment for war. The work we are doing is a great and perhaps final effort to establish conditions in which the world may be freed from the menace of war for ever.” “Occupation for 15 Years” Germany had jo be occupied for a minimum of 15 years, but the maximum occupation peripd could not be foreseen, said the commander of the United States forces In Germany (General J. T. McNarney) at a press conference m Frankfurt. He added that five years more than the earlier estimate was needed because German youth still required reeducating along democratic lines. “Reeducation hap so far been unnoticeable jn Germany,” he said. General McNarney said that unless the growing generation could take a responsible part in government it would be impossible to have a democratic Germany. The general said that he was considering “screening” all German girls in the United States zone before permitting them social contact with American soldiers, primarily to reduce the amount of Nazi propaganda which the soldiers were unwittingly swallowing. The United States soldier’s privilege of entertaining Allied or German girls in his bißet had been cancelled following a recent serie? pf deaths of German girls who had associated with United States soldiers. Billets were now classified as bachelor quarters under the Army post rules, with women only allowed in specifically designated entertainment rooms.

An order making it a military offence for American soldiers and German girls to show too much affection in the streets has been issued by the Ist United States Infantry Division, states Reuter’s correspondent in Nuremberg, “Arm-in-arm fraternisation which includes hugging, kissing, netting, walking with arms round the body and holding hands is undignified and unsoldierly, and it cannot be tolerated,” states the order.

Germans Losing Weight A statement by the British Military Government says that reports from all urban areas in the British zone show signs of an increasing loss of weight among Germans. The average weight of Hamburg residents fell by nearly 211 b during a single week in May, in which there were 126 new cases of hunger oedema (swelling induced by insufficient diet), but in rural areas there was little suffering from lack of food.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Dr. Hugh Dalton), in a written reply m the House of Commons, said that Britain had spent 35.000,000 dollars for food ftff Germany and 2.000,000 dollars for food for Austria to March 31 The British authorities have made available supplies of nenicillin to German civilians in an effort to cope with the spread of venereal disease, which has reached disturbing proportions among females.