GERMANY’S RATIONING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 March 1940, Page 6

GERMANY’S RATIONING

WOMEN SUFFER MOST. SERIOUS SHORTAGE OF CLOTHES. Tn view of the German climate, especially in winter, the meals obviously lack a sufficient fat basis to have Staying power and workers often complain jf being hungry shortly alter one of the skimpier meals, writes a neutral commentator of German rationing condll ions.

As a matter of fact. most. Gorman people are beginning to develop a sori of psychological hunger, lie continues, which makes food one of the 'principal concerns and induces one to eat whereever lie can and whatever ho can get. if necessary, for "storage." And one way of satisfying this psychological hunger is with cakes, which are still unrationed. Even strong men are becoming cake eaters during lhe war. A paradoxical result of this, plus the increased consumption of potatoes and starches, is that the Germans, especially the women, are getting stouter rather than the reverse.

More pressing, however, than even Hie food problem is Die problem of clothes. 'The days when Berlin began to rival Paris in Die elegance of fashion have long since passed. Today it is a question not of fashion but of covering nakedness, and the tailors and dressmakers are beginning to specialise not in designing new styles but in turning and remodelling old garments acquired in better days.

For the clothes rations are even skimpier than lhe food rations, and unless the war ends soon or new supplies are obtained when the present clothes are worn out. Die Germans face the prospect of going in rags. In respect I*, women's stockings. in which most women were caught, short, and which are wearing 1 out more rapidly than usual because Ibero is more walking' to do, this stage has already been reached. Already Dio otherwise still well-dress-ed woman may lie soon wearing badly faltered and mended stockings or incongruous cotton socks, and groat is the outcry over that. • All this, of course, means more work and trouble for the hausfrau. who must save every piece of clothing, mending, patching' and ripairing what, is worn out. mid figuring out ways of making now clothes from old by combining scraps. zX 11 in all. the Gorman women pay as much or more for the war Ilian lhe men. for lhe German women arc charged with holding the domestic trout, while Die men hold Die front in the fields, mines and armament works. Constantly through the radio, press, and movies it is hammered into lhe minds of the German hausfrau th it she must, fig,hl. Io win lhe war in the l:i' j eheii and in the home, i