NAZI MAN-POWER DRIVE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 49, 27 February 1942, Page 6

NAZI MAN-POWER DRIVE

GREATEST TEST YET

LONDON, February 25,

Germany is engaged Qn a drive for man-power on a grand scale, reports the diplomatic correspondent of "The Times." It extends from the highest to the lowest. Hitler's cry on January 30: "Work, work, work," is re-echoed by every succeeding speaker. Dr. Ley, the Labour Front leader, addressing Rhineland workers, said: "I bring nothing—l require and demand." The German armies seem largely to have been concentrated at strongpoints along the Eastern Front. Generals like Bock and Rundstedt have been brought back from the Russian front.

Industry has been put on a new basis, no longer providing simply for warfare, but for warfare without a predictable end. Smaller, inefficient, or uneconomic factories are being abolished or are being merged. More hours are being worked each day.

Nine million women, says the correspondent, are already working in German industry. Germany's industrial strength is 24,000,000, apart from imported foreign workers. Herr Mansfeld, the nejw Controller of Labour, plans to increase the number of foreign workers to 5,000,000, particularly from Russia. He has already ordered all metallurgical workers in Kiev between the ages of 17 and 50 to register for employment in Germany.

Theoretically, German production reached its peak in 1941, but facts, adds "The Times," have a way of defeating theories. The Germans have been overstrained for nine years, and proof: of this is the growth of' disease in Germany. Russia has taken much of the spirit out of Germany, and lack of rubber, oil, textiles, and leather is evident, but Hitler has-now put the Germans to the greatest • test, and hopes, with the Reichswehr, to turn the scale.