INSIDE GERMANY

Greymouth Evening Star, 20 November 1939, Page 8

INSIDE GERMANY

“GRIEF ON EVERY FACE.” A special correspoundent of the Danish newspaper “Politiken,” Herr Waltei’ Schwartz, made what is believed to be the first visit to the German Western front; he spent three days at the end of last week travelling from Dudweiler, six miles from Saarbrucken, to Bingerbruck, near Bingen, on the Rhine'. Enormous bodies of German troops from the east front are now fully prepared behind the Siegfried Line. Most of them are concentrated in the territory north of Wissembourg, Saarbrucken, Dudweiler and Saarlautern. Numerous trains loaded with soldiers, are steadily coming from the east. Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle) is now almost empty, as are indeed most of the towns along the Siegfried Line, especially in the territory round Saarbrucken and Saarlautern. Countless trains have taken the women and children, old people and cripples to Mainz and Frankfurt-on-the-Main. From there they are sent in smaller groups all over Germany, preferably to relatives and friends. No gas masks are seen anywhere, and the people will not believe that there can be any danger from the air. Even when wounded soldiers are brought back from the front no mention can be made ,of the cause of the wound because nobody is allowed to speak to them.

Tears are treachery, and there is no weeping. But grief is on every face and all seem to be asking: “Why this war?” Huge placards give lurid warnings about the methods of foreign espionage and threaten with prison and even death all those who are caught making thoughtless or illconsidered remarks. The expression of despair* or anxiety and any form of panic are also treachery, and as such punishable. While the civil population cannot get any meat at all west of the Rhine the soldiers do not seem to be short of beef or mutton. At the chief hotel near Saarbrucken the only dish was white cabbage soup, made of dissolved stock tablets, and' a few tomatoes. The soup was excellent, but the bread, several days old, was terrible, and when the correspondent ■ asked for just a little butter the answer was: “Nein, butter gibt’s nicht” (“No, there is no butter”), and when he asked for some cheese he received the same answer.

“I can affirm that 90 per cent, of the German people think that the war is over,” a Belgian traveller writes in the “Libre Belgique,” on his return from a three weeks’ visit to Germany. “People are convinced that France will not fight when Poland has been liquidated. This view is being strengthened by propaganda; but high officials in Berlin expect a long and decisive war, with Germany obtaining assistance through the resources of Poland' and Russia.” The writer says that it is proposed to quadruple railway facilities to Russia. State control in Germany is developing rapidly, he adds, and many ruined tradesmen are selling their shops to the State and becoming workpeople. Production of private industries is limited to 25 per cent, of the 1937 output.