A NAZI LABOUR CAMP

Press, Volume LXX, Issue 21320, 13 November 1934, Page 10

A NAZI LABOUR CAMP

UNDER MILITARY DISCIPLINE | A NEW ZEALAND OBSERVER'S ! EXPERIENCES jßy G. S. COS.J I. % The experiences of a New Zea : * land Rhodes scholar in a Nazi labour camp are described in two articles of which this,is the first.

This summer I set out to see something of the new Germany which the Nazis have been busy erecting since they came to power 20 months ago. I knew I would learn nothing by travelling round looking at things from a railway carriage window or a street side cafe. Only by actually working in the country could I find out what is really happening. I speak German, so J. applied to the German authorities for permission, as a student with an interest in their country, to work in one of the camps of the Youtn Labour Service, the Freiv/illige Arbeitsdienst. They examined my credentials, made me submit a statement of my past career, and final l / aJlotted me to a camp in a little village called Rodewald, about M miles from Hanover. There are more than 1000 of these camps—Arbeitslager—in Germany. They exist partly to provide work for the young unemployed and partly as places where the youth of the country in general may be put through a training in manual labour under conditions of military organisation and military discipline. The service is in name voluntary— Freiwillige—except for students, who must do six months' labour training before they can enter the university; in practice it is compulsory for others as well. Any young unemployed who refused to serve in a labour camp would lose the dole. Moreover, under the Labour Law of August, 1934, every employer, in granting employment, is required to give preference to applicants with a work pass—Arbeitspass—showing that they have served the required period in the Labour Service. The Government intends, as soon as funds permit, to make a year's training in a labour camp compulsory for every young German between the ages of 17 and 25, in the way in which military training was compulsory in pre-war davs. e, I had heard in England that these camps were already being used for military purposes, and even in Germany I heard rumours of inadequate food and bad conditions. "I only hope you get enough to eat," was the farewell the porter gave me on the Berlin railway station after I had been discussing labour camps with him. So I prepared myself by buying a big red sausage and stowing it in my kit.

The Barracks Described The camp proved to be a group of low-roofed wooden barracks, painted red and white, and grouped round a sandy parade square. In front were three ilagstafi's, flying the red, white and black of Germany, the Nazi swastika flag, and the Labour Service banner—red, with, in the white centre circle, the emblem of a spade between two ears of wheat. By the gateway stood a sentry in khaki, witli a spade sloped on his shoulder. I was allotted to an ordinary section, and served for three weeks under the same conditions and the same discipline as the other trainees. They were mostly young workers and unemployed from Hanover and the Ruhr, with a scattering of students. There are some camps run specially for students, but this was an ordinary camp typical in routine and organisation of hundreds in the service.

We slept 16 to a barrack, each man having his own bunk and locker. I was issued with the same equipment as the others. It included everything necessary for camp life, including sports clothes, sports shoes, underclothes and sox. For work we wore a drab uniform of field grey, in which we looked like German prisoners in the war-time photographs. For parades, and to go on leave, we had a smart khaki uniform, with a swastika armband like that of the Storm Troops, black shoulder tabs, and a peaked, high-crowned cap. One large room, with trestle tables and an old piano, served as a dining room and living room. Photos of Hitler, Goering, the "German Saar" and Hindenburg, looked down from their place on the walls amidst Nazi flags. There were slogans, too, such as "Labour Service is the Honour Service of German Youth," and "Germany needs you as you need Germany." One camp i visited near Berlin had a framed Quotation from a speech by Hitler, "The Jew is not a German, but merely a trader; not a citizen, but an exterminator." (Der Jude ist niclit. ein Deutscher, sondern oin Tauscher; nicht ein Burger, sondern ein Wurger.) It faced, ironically enough, a quotation from Kant, "Have the courage to use your reason." But there were touches relieving this propaganda—here a bunch of flowers, there some heather.

The Day's Work The camp day began at 5 a.m., when the notes of the chill German reveille called us out to 10 minutes' early physical exercises. After washing, dressing and bed-making, came, at 5.45, breakfast of coffee, bread, margarine and jam. The food was very plain, but good, and we could eat as much as we wished. I felt a little ashamed of that sausage.

After breakfast came flag parade, and then the work sections marched off, flag in front. As we went along the country roads we sang sometimer; Nazi anthems and Labour Service songs such as "As We Carried to the Grave a Hitler Comrade," "We Are the Work Soldiers"; but more often we sang popular tunes such as "In Hamburg Lives My Blonde." The work went on from 7 a.m. untl 1 p.m., with a break of about half an hour at 9.30 for a second breakfast of bread, sausage and cheese. There was no slave driving. When the foreman was on another part of the location it was always possible to take a spell in the sun, or hunt snakes in "the heather. It was all straightforward manual work, digging ditches or cutting undergrowth for ditch bottoms, in order to drain the sour heather land and make it fit for cultivation. The camp authorities denied vigorously that the work was being made solely in order to give these young unemployed something to do.

They argued that it was part of a scheme to make Germany independent of foreign foodstuffs in the event of war or a breakdown of the credit system. But if the work was important, it was certainly not. urgent The men felt the work monotonous, and did no more than was necessary. Moreover, no attempt was made to stimulate them by inviting suggestions, or giving each sectioii some degree of freedom in settling its own methods and conditions of work, or even by working section in competition with section. These things smack of "Parliamentarism," and are ruled out in modern Germany. In this respect the present labour camps are very different from the old voluntary camps out of which they developed, dnd which were largely self-governing. At 1 p.m. we marched home to a lunch which consisted usually of a big bowl of stew. Then came an hour and a-half's rest. "Bettruhe," and at 4.30, two hours' drill or sport. Supper was at 6.30. and consisted of coffee, bread and sausage. The evenings 'were free, or used for singing, lectures, or listening to political speeches on Die 'radio. Lirhts out came at 10 p.m. It was not a very hard day once one was fit. As wages the trainee received his keep, the use or the issued clothing, and 25 pfennings a day—about 4d at the present rate of exchange. Out of this he had to buy boot polish and soap before he had anything left for extras like tobacco. Leave was, however, plentiful. Those who could afford it could return to their homes in Hanover at the week-end. These conditions were a little better, according to trainees who had served in other parts of the country, than in most camps. But the difference lay in the fact that we had a better leader than most camns, and not in any difference in routine or equipment. Our commander was a former wartime Army officer, strict, but popular. (To be concluded.)