WITH WHAT PURPOSE!

Auckland Star, Volume LI, Issue 236, 2 October 1920, Page 17

WITH WHAT PURPOSE!

GERMANS CULTIVATE FITNESS. On Sunday, June 13 (writes a correspondent of the "Times" from Germany), I "walked for some 20 kilometres through the cduntry districts between Hanau and Frankfort, and saw for myself the muscle-making industry to which young Germany is devoting all its spare time. I passed thousands of "young Germans of both sexes marching along the roads in military order, mostly in bands of 40 to 80 men and women. All carried knapsacks, and in nearly every case three or four had musical instruments (mostly Tyrolean guitars). The usual plan is for these bands to leave the cities and towns on Saturday afternoon and evening, and camp out for the night. Some carry small canvas tents, something like an American Army "pup-tent." but most sleep in the open air.

Both men and women are loosely dressed, the men. without coats, as a rule, and the women with open bodices and no corsets. They present a fine, healthy appearance, and, although the heavy marching will not make the women beautiful, it will improve, rather than interfere with, their breeding capacities—which is what the Germans want, as they seem to be determined toj replace the men she has lost as quickly as possible, and every German village is literally swarming-Tvith little machinegunners.

In these great marching movements, young people of both sexes march together and pass the night together in the fields. German vital statistics before the war were notoriously incomplete, and it would not be surprising it a notable percentage of illegitimate births were passed over in silence in the future. The young of Germany is now being; taught that physical strength is the thing most to be admired in man and child-bearing in woman.

The explanation generally given for those outings, that they are the result of purely economic causes, does not satisfy mc. AVhen a German says that the young people cannot afford the pleasures of the cities, that the only reason they march is because they cannot pay fourth-class train fares, and that there is no other way in which they can obtain an outing, I am sceptical. Germans were always fond of "vereins" of all kinds, and before tihe war I have seen marching clubs and tourist organisations on the road; but nothing like what I saw on .Sunday.

This is now almost a national movement. It is the youth of a nation training hard to make muscle, to T>reed a new, strong, and numerous generation— whether for rebuilding or for revenge I do not know.