FORCED LABOUR

Waikato Times, Volume 125, Issue 20912, 18 September 1939, Page 11

FORCED LABOUR

GERMAN WOMEN DRAFTED A Nazi plan for the conscription of women of means and leisure to do compulsory service as workers in factories, including ammunition plants, is lieing tried out in Celle and Hanover, writes Sigrid Schultz, from Berlin, to tile Chicago Tribune. The plan is meeting with considerable resistance. In the first week the women showed what the Nazis consider a remarkable lack of talent for the compulsory Jobs meted out to them. In Celle and Hanover several groups of socially prominent women of all ages—even in their fifties—were ordered to report for work a maximum oi six weeks in ammunition plants and similar organisations of national importance. in Celle, the conscription measure raised a tremendous storm. It is one of those prosperous small towns with a big. garrison, a huge airfield, and an important high court where wives of functionaries aDd army officers abound and all are aware of their social importance. Useless Protests The women who were drafted to work in a nearby munitions factory were ordered to muster in at 5 a.m. SOme succeeded in getting their husbands to intervene on their behalf. Only women who had small children were excused. The women were told their protests were useless “ unless they wanted to create the impression they were not ardent Nazis." They went to work. They were paid 18 cents an hour (about lid in New Zealand currency) and the customary taxes and insurance dues were deducted from their pay envelopes. Forewomen found the newi employees lacked aptitude for their work. For the sake of efficiency the factory owners asked the Nazis to alter the plan—to use the compulsory labour of the women only in cases of direct emergency. The elder girls of the Nazi Association of German Girls were drafted In the place of some of the elderly women. Now Adolf Hitler's labour experts are considering what jobs they could entrust to the women of leisure to “ make proper use of their unused strength.”