GERMANY’S WINTER CRISIS

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25080, 11 January 1947, Page 7

GERMANY’S WINTER CRISIS

Twenty-Four Deaths From Cold In Hamburg LITTLE COAL; FACTORIES IDLE IN BERLIN (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. it p.m.) LONDON, January 9. The British authorities in Germany, on the sixth day of the worst cold of the occupation, faced the problem whether the few r remaining means of transport should be used for carrying coal or food. The Rhine is completely closed to navigation, and the British have announced that they have to stop electricity exports to Belgium and Holland. The number of deaths from cold in Hamburg in the last four days is now 24. Troops are busy converting Hamburg’s great anti-aircraft tower and army barracks into warming halls where 1500 people will be “thawed out” at a time. Gravediggers in Hamburg, after six more deaths from cold, reported that in the last 24 hours they had had to dynamite the stiffened earth before they could dig graves. Because of the difficulty of digging graves in the frostbound earth, the British have allocated extra coal to the crematoriums. The Berlin City Council met in the unheated council chambers to discuss the cold and the coal crisis. All big factories in Berlin are now shut down because of the coal shortage. Forty thousand workers are idle. The British sector of the city had an electricity cut lasting 13 hours yesterday. More than 150 girls employed by the British Control Commission in Hamburg, who were evacuated from their frozen billets to a hotel yesterday, threaten to strike because they are still shivering in their new quarters. They are sleeping on couches with only one sheet and one blanket. They have to sleep in greatcoats and gloves, and. work in their offices in greatcoats.

Reuter’s correspondent reports that in Greater Hesse, in the American zone, American troops had to be called out to support German police defending coal yards against would-be looters.

A forecast of warmer weather in Western Germany is welcome news for the frozen population.

EUROPE’S COLDEST SINCE 1940-41

Reports from many parts of Europe indicate that the cold spell which still has much of the Continent in its grip is the worst since the winter of 194041, when some of the severest weather for the last 50 years was recorded. Fok the last nine days, temperatures over most of Germany have been from 10 to 20 degrees below freezing point Canals have more than a foot of ice and snow on them, and in many of the large cities, starved for fuel and exposed by war damage, conditions are described as desperate. In addition to the deaths reported from Hamburg, more than’ 100 cases of frostbite are reported in Berlin. Similar conditions prevail in Italy, where 14 deaths are reported. In some parts of the peninsula the temperatures were the lowest recorded in living memory. In Trieste the thermometer fell to 10.5 degrees Fahrenheit. Even in Sicily the temperatures are below freezing point. Milan, Turin, and all the cities of the north are under a thick blanket, while in Venice the canals are frozen and gondolas are gripped by quick-forming ice.

Many of the northern passes through the Apennines are partially blocked by snow. Temperatures below zero Fahrenheit were recorded in many parts of Austria. In Vienna, where factories have already been closed for a month because of lack of fuel, there is almost a complete paralysis of all normal activity. Only one newspaper was published in the capital on Wednesday, and in some hospitals operations had to be carried out by the light of acetylene lamps, because the electricity supply completely failed. Although snow fell in many parts of the British Isles, France, and countries of the western European seaboard, the cold spell has been moderated in this area by a depression mov-. ing in from the Atlantic. To-day all traces of snow disappeared from southern England, and conditions are rapidly improving in the north. In parts of Ireland and the English lakes district, however, there is a serious threat of flooding.