LIFE IN GERMANY

Dominion, Volume 38, Issue 21, 19 October 1944, Page 5

LIFE IN GERMANY

Nazi Prisoner’s Account

(Official War Correspondent, N.Z.E.F.) GAMBETTOLA, October 16.

“Eighty per cent, of Berlin is destroyed. My old home near the Olympic Stadium is no more. For 50 kilometres there is just nothing,” said a German prisoner taken by a southern battalion north of Gambettola today. He should know, for he passed through Berlin on his way from Denmark to Italy in September.

This man, an ex-journalist, tells a sad talc of life in Germany. There are only two classes, parly and non-party, he said.

“Germans arc not permitted to change their profession,” he continued. “If my father is a butcher. I am a butcher. Four years before the war the Nazis changed this, but not for the better. They wanted metal workers for bombs and cannon, so by decrees they made men metal workers.

“In July,- 1939, I received a command to report for three months’ military training. That is five years and three months ago, and I am still in uniform.” He has served in France, Russia, Belgium, Norway and Denmark. When the pressure was on in Italy he was withdrawn from garbison duty in Denmark and sent to the Adriatic front. That was 14 days ago.

“This morning I talk to the men of my company,’ continued the prisoner, "and I say we can never win without guns, planes and petrol. Last week we had rations every two days. Yesterday we were issued with a big bag each, t ask why. Au officer tells me there is no more petrol. We must retreat across Italy, carrying our own food. This morning they ask me what I think of tlie war. 1 say I am finished witli the war and that I will remain behind. ‘Hut,’ says my friend, T, too, shall remain.’ We stayed in a house and your men came, and in the next house also there were eight Germans. It is too much.”

He paints a grim picture of life in Germany. “There is hunger, fear and ruin,” he says. “Always bombs come. No one now believes we can possibly win. There are only file fanatics of the party. Here they, hound us into the line. No one believes anything any more. They say, ‘ls it fact or propaganda?’ It is too much.”