RUHR STILL VITAL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 11 July 1941, Page 5

RUHR STILL VITAL

AS INDUSTRIAL HE4RT OF GERMANY DIFFICULTIES 5 OF MOVING HEAVY INDUSTRY. EFFECT OF R.A.F. HAMMER BLOWS. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY. July 9. The intensification of the R.A.F. attacks on the Ruhr provokes the question: “Has Germany not moved her industry in bulk to the east?” Authoritative circles in London, while agreeing that a move of some kind may have been made to the safest possible places —including Austria and Poland —emphasise that economically it is almost impossible to remove the heavy material from the corresponding heavy supplies such as coal and coke. A heavy plant installed with pipe mains and other intricate accessories becomes almost, part of the ground, and transportation would involve 50 per cent rebuilding and would be a colossal undertaking. Extensions to plant may well have been set up in the eastern Reich if the economic handicaps have not proved too great. But the Ruhr, which before the war produced 70 to 75 per cent of German coal and contained a greater part of the coking and steel industries and also to a lesser degree the electric power industry, is still the industrial heart of Germany. That the Nazis recognise the fact is shown by a recent statement in the newspaper “Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung” that “the fate of the Ruhr area is the fate of Germany.” Hammer blows on the Ruhr are hammer blows on the German economy.