TENNIS BALLS FOR GERMAN WAR EFFORT

Press, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23661, 11 June 1942, Page 4

TENNIS BALLS FOR GERMAN WAR EFFORT

RUBBER FAMINE

The Germans are being urgently appealed to for the surrender of—tennis balls! The rubber is wanted for the landing-buffers of the new massproduced gliders. After German wardrobes have been ransacked to clothe an army whose wants the textile industry has failed to supply, and after privately owned skis have been collected to equip units for operations m Russian snows, German tennis Pj a y a s s are to make their contribution to the Luftwaffe. . . „ This state'of affairs, which is represented in Germany as politically and strategically quite unimportant, nevertheless throws an interesting light on Germany’s precarious situation in regard to the of a vitally important raw material —namely rubber Nor is it the only measure which points to a crisis in the rubber industry. By the cultivation of a new kind of plant in thb occupied East and in the Balkans—based, incidentally, on a Russian experiment—every effort is being made to acquire additional supplies of rubber. Next to oil, rubber is perhaps the most important and the scarcest 01 the raw materials needed by the German war machine. In peace time Germany depended almost wholly upon import from abroad. By increasing that import after 1033, she accumulated a large reserve from which she was able to provide the tyres for her military transport. In 1933 Germany imported 58,200 tons of rubber in 1936, 73,400 tons, and in 1938, 91,900 tons. Consumption in the early months of the war was probably made good by the loot of stocks in the occupied territories. In France, especially, the Germans captured large stocks ot ruober. Synthetic Rubber The manufacture of synthetic Buna, the standard German substitute for rubber, only began on a large scale in' 1938-39, a point of material importance to the study of this problem. The first experiments were carried out in 1936 in Schkopau, a village between Halle and Merseburg. In the following years monthly output amounted to about 200 tons. Schkopau is described as a "Grosswerk" (a plant producing on a large scale). According to official figures, output by 1940 had been doubled, which means that monthly production was 4-500 tons, or a maximum of 6000 tons p year. Since then a second “Grosswerk" has been added (this started producing in the late summer of 1930) and a third has been built since the war began.

[By K. C. TAYLQR]

The above-quoted figures for the first factory at Schkopau show that the total output of synthetic rubber should not be under-estimated. On the other hand, the small number of factories as yet

established places it beyond doubt that bombing raids upon one or other of them is bound very considerably to affect total output. It is no easy matter to establish Buna factories in any number or locality desired. The primary raw material is coal, and electricity is also required in large supply. Forty thousand kilo, watts are needed to produce a single ton of Buna! Factories are therefore in the main tied down to a coal area, that is, to the main industrial centres, where they are exposed to air attack. Schkopau has a power-station of its own. supplying the necessary current to the Buna works. In view of the existing shortage of electrical power—vide restrictions on private Consumers in Germany and in most of the occupied territories—an expansion of the output of synthetic rubber will en. counter further difficulties on this score. Vegetable Rubber

No wonder that, with reserves dwindling and synthetic manufacture hampered by difficulties, all effort is directed towards finding new solutions ■ (especially as the business world is evidently not too hopeful of effecting an early junction in India with their Japanese friends, now so well off for rubber). South-eastern Europe is to be made the centre for the cultivation of a plant known as “Sagys,” the roots : of which contain from 10-25 per cept.. of rubber. . The first experiments with this plant were made by the Soviets, and have already met with practical results. The Russians planted these roots in the . Ukraine and in parts of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina, when they occupied those districts in 1939-40. The average yield per hectare (roughly two and a half acres) is about li tons, and > experiments have shown that about 1 kg. of rubber can be obtained from 1J ■ tons of sagys. An area of 500,000 hectares would therefore yield roughly 7500 tons of raw rubber. Rumania—at German orders, of course—is to plant 1000 hectares in Bessarabia with io- , called “coke sagys,” a special kind of sagys, whi' ■> Hungary is required to grow the plant on uncultivated land. that has been laid., waste by floods. Thus south-eastern Europe is being. turned into a field of experiment to * satisfy German needs, regardless of the fact that Balkan interests lie elsewhere. Apart from this, however, the figures given above show that at the.-; best the contribution to Germany’s rub' i her supply can only be minute. Ger- ■ many, for the time being, will have to 7 rely upon her own reserves which, It, : * would seem, have now shrunk to a few privately-owned tennis-balls, (European Correspondents, Ltd., World Copyright Reserved.!