Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit TUESDAY, OCTOBER 12, 1943. CONDITIONS IN GERMANY.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 64, Issue 1, 12 October 1943, Page 2

Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit TUESDAY, OCTOBER 12, 1943. CONDITIONS IN GERMANY.

Go.eb.bels has come to the front again with a statement intended to hearten the German peopie. lhe bread ration is to be increased. It is in the light of a hastening disintegration of the German home front that this announcement must be judged. Goebbels is the only Nazi leader who still dares to face the limelight. Like Mussolini in his declining days, Hitler does not appear. He does not visit the bombed towns to encourage the population. The eclipse of Hitler, Goering and their confederates is a contession of the bankruptcy of the Nazi Party. It can do nothing but entrust the fate of the German forces to their generals and the oontrol of the German civilians to the bestial Himmler. Goebbels is summoned to tell the people that they will have more bread. It is significant that a similar announcement was made exactly a year ago. German bread is made from wholemeal flour consisting of forty-two parts of rye, thirtyfive of wheat, twenty of barley and three of potato flour. The ration was increased by a greater use of barley, resulting from cuts in the allowances for beer and cattle fodder. This in its turn led to the slaughtering of livestock, enabling, at a heavy cost, an increase in the meat ration. Such were the desperate expedients used in October, 1942. Since that time there have been enormous calls on German manpower. Professional and business men, small shopkeepers, manufacturers and artisans have been swept into the armies to make good the losses in Russia. Perhaps rural labour was left untouched. But it can scarcely have been increased. No new victories have brought hordes of prisoners to toil as labourers on German farms. True, the Germans will not bother themselves now about feeding the Italians. It will be surprising if the improved bread ration gives anything better in nutritional value; it will be still more surprising if it pfoves any more real than the so-called increase of 1942.