GERMANY TODAY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 23 September 1939, Page 8

GERMANY TODAY

ECONOMIC DECLINE NEUTRAL’S DARK PICTURE. INDUSTRIES OVER-DRIVEN. I Experience has shown how unsafe it is to predict the early economic collapse of a nation in war. That Britain is determined not to fall into any such error, as regards Germany has been made plain by the Government’s decision to prepare fcr a war lasting at least three years, and possibly longer. Nevertheless, a good deal of interest attaches to recent estimates of German resources under war Conditions. Such a review is made in" “German’s War Chances,” a book published in July by a Hungarian pf-o-fessor, Dr Ivan Lajos. He shows no political bias whatever against the Nazi regime, and has gone to official and other responsible sources for near - ly all his material —to Government statistics and reports, articles in mill tary and professional journals and reported addresses. DEMANDS EXCEED CAPACITY. ■ If the reader can accept them the author’s findings on this material* utterly confound German hopes of prosecuting a large-scale war for more than a brief period. In some ways he appears to prove too much, but his book is still valuable as a presentation of one side of the case. The picture Dr Lajos paints is that of a nation already driven beyond its capacity in man-power, land, minerals, industrial plant, capital and credit. Hitler’s Germany, on his showing, has been compelled to live for a number of years under conditions more and more resembling those of war. By a strange irony, its vitality has been heavily drawn upon in order to develop immediate strength of a particular kind —the strength of a huge army and a coiTespondingly huge air force intended to dominate other peoples. ' Soldiers, economists, bankers and even civil administrators have not been blind to the dangers of such a course, for the book’s pages are full of their unheeded warnings. The soldiers are perhaps the most apprehensive of all. PLIGHT OF AGRICULTURE. A serving officer, Major Beutler, for example, in 1937 condemned the socalled science of “war economy.” “The national economy which disregarded economic principles,” he wrote, “would in a very short time be overhauled by the economies of other countries, and would-, from the military point of view, lose its value. After all, the task of the national economy in peace time is to create for its own nation the best standard of living in competition with the economies of other nations.” Dr Lajos’ survey of German indus tries and resources as they were in the early months of this year shows little but gloom. He quotes abundant’figures and statements of fact and opinion to show that-the dizzy pace demanded by

the Nazi Government was upsetting every department of German life, i Owing to the withdrawal of men, agricultural production and livestock were declining, while there was a serious falling-off in the health of youths and women in the agrarian districts. Land under cultivation had shrunk by 6 per cent in 1933, through industrialisation and the building of motor roads and military works. In some districts., even, subsoil water supplies had been depleted by new mines and factories. QUALITY OF GOODS FALLS. In industry the tale was little better. Coal production, in spite of all efforts to speed it up, showed a progressive fall. New machinery was being used to equip more and more factories, and the replacement of older plant was neglected, threatening a breakdown. Long hours and diet restrictions had affected workers’ health, so that in some industries 50 per cent had had to be given medical attention. Complaints were made of deterioration in quality of output through lack of training for new employees, the general speedingup and use of inferior and substitute materials. In order to enable low-grade iron ores to be utilised, the manufacture of certain steels had been abandoned, and there was much trouble with newlymade armaments and other plant in consequence. For example, three small warships delivered early this year to Turkey were stated by Turkish newspapers to have developed so many grave defects as to be almost useless. FINANCIAL DETERIORATION. The author goes fully into the question of self sufficiency in food, oil, metals and other essential war materials. He finds that Greater Germany produces nearly 80 per cent of her requirements in total foodstuffs, but only 50 to 55 per cent of the normal supply of fats and stock-foods. In-’

ternal supplies of oil from all sources in 1937 met only 36 per cent of the peace-time demand of 3,150,000 tons, but this figure would be but a fraction of the enormous requirements in war. The only considerable foreign Wartime supply would be from Rumania, which produced but 6,350,000 tons in 1938, much of the output being the property of two British companies. The stoVagd ot really large reserves is dismissed as impracticable. Germany’s financial position, according to Dr Lajos, had deteriorated enormously by the beginning of this year, the foreign trade balance had swung in one year from a credit of 328,000,000 to a debit of 432,000,000 reichsmarks, and only the seizure of the Czech gold and exchange reserves in March saved the situation. There is . no doubt, he comments, that today the Reich’s foreign indebtedness' considerably exceeds het assets. It is difficult to exaggerate the difficulties she Would have in supplying the enormous military demands for raW materials ih war-time by purchase from neutrals. Doubtful Morale. As for the morale of the people in war, the author quotes from a speech by Herr Himmler, chief of the Gestapo, to a meeting of officers in September, 1937: “In the War of the future there Will not only be the frbhts of the armies on land, of the navies at sea and Of the ail- forces in the air; there will be a fourth theatre of war inside Germany.’-’ He adds a quotation from a book by Karl PihtschoVius, issued with military approval in 1936: “The people’s will to fight will be the most sensitive front in the struggle. Given the horrors of modern warfare, it is impossible to extract by force the devotion which duty demands. In the beginning it might succeed, but later, not. Men can be butchered, but not made to fight.”