VARIOUS VIEWS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 December 1942, Page 3

VARIOUS VIEWS

ON PROSPECT OF GERMAN COLLAPSE DISCUSSION IN BRITAIN. MANY FACTORS OF STRAIN & WEAKNESS. (Special P.A. Correspondent). LONDON, December 16. “Will Germany colapse?” asked a headline in a popular national newspaper today. This recurring question of the war still continues to be debated. In the words of the “Financial News,” opinions are "sharply divided”, about the effect of prolonged stress on Germany’s war economy. Some quarters are expressing the opinion that the strain is beinning to tell on her arms production and general economic system and others are maintaining that Germany is able to carry on for years from an economic point of view. The “Financial News” expresses the opinion that there is no doubt the development of a second front in North Africa and the menace of invasion of the Continent from the Mediterranean have changed Germany’s economic position considerably for the worse, because Hitler cannot now release millions of soldiers during the winter for the arms industries requirements and to the extent to which'his efforts are successful to obtain workmen for Germany from occupied 'territories, the flow of war material from occupied territories is bound to decline at exactly the movement when the Allied war industries are coming into their stride. A warning is given that it would be idle to attach undue hopes to shortages of various war materials, nor should the food position, though it is far from satisfactory, give rise to sanguine hopes. There is actually a surfeit of bread. It is compulsory to buy the whole of the bread ration, but impossible to consume it, and as it is an offence to waste foods, the woods round Berlin and other cities are littered with loaves nobody wants. ■ ■ AIRCRAFT SHORTAGE. It is remarked that the apparent inadequacy of the aircraft industry is easily the most surprising feature of the arms industry, and recently there has been growing evidence that it is unable to cope with the increased requirements, while the transport system is easily the weakest spot of Germany’s war economy. “There are many other weak spots, but none suggests that Germany is seriously likely to 'crack in the near future,” the “Financial News” says. “Her internal economic position is stronger than during the fourth winter of the last war, because it is better organised and Germany has almost the whole of Europe to draw from. We ought.to rely on our increasing strength and not on the enemy’s‘declining resources.” The “Economist,” in a series of articles, stated that, in spite of its remaining reserves, German economy in farm and factory was running down. Even before the Russian attack life in Germany was drab,' but, by contrast with today, things were then going very well.

Now the scene is very different. It is more plain that the Nazis have ravaged their own country in addition to the other lands. Its young people, brought up in the Nazi creed, are fighting a campaign far from Germany, which has been invaded by foreigners to fill the place of its sons. One out of every 10 of the population and one out of every four of the workers are aliens — immigrants or prisoners—and it is clear that without the foreign labour the German war effort would break down. Everyone is toiling, but the labour supply is still insufficient and Germans are working 60 to 80 hours a week, side by side with half-starved aliens, while hundreds of thousands of men and women are working far from their homes. DIMINISHING RATIONS.

Everyone’s preoccupation is food, clothing and shelter. There is practically no. food available that is not rationed; .the new clothing ration is about half that of 1939; and shelter is more scarce than food and clothing—in Munich more than 2000 people are "hunting for flats —while- almost everything in Germany, is bartered. The people crave for diversion, and the longest queues are outside cinemas, theatres, musichalls and restaurants. Among relatives and friends the highest favours can be bought for cinema and theatre tickets. Slowly but surely the German home life begins to resemble 1917-18, and the strain is undoubtedly growing. “The people are bound and gagged by the most monstrous bureaucracy that has ever been. The soldiers at the front and the people at home are slowly being split into two different nations. The young Nazis at the front may still be convinced of their ultimate superiority, but the people at home can see how the scales are being weighted against them,” the “Economist” states.