COLD AND HUNGER

Greymouth Evening Star, 6 February 1947, Page 8

COLD AND HUNGER

BITTERNESS IN BRITISH ZONE OF GERMANY PEOPLE IN LETHARGIC STATE LONDON, February 5. The prospect of a debate in . the House of Commons to-day on the. administration of the British zone of Germany lias aroused only slight interest among the Germans, says the Berlin correspondent of The Times. This is partly due to a feeling that the defeated have no voice in the councils of- the victors, and partly to a feeling that debates on Germany in the House of Commons, in which purely British political considerations come into play, are apt to leave Germany in its former miserable state. That the British zone now is in a miserable state cannot seriously be disputed, but so' is the rest of Germany. The whole country is. in the midst of a winter infinitely more bit-ter-than last, with short rations, inr adequate housing, and ever-present cold.

“Everything has Gone.” “Everything has gone except cold and hunger,” the Germans say, and in the British zone, which is more industrialised than any other part of Germany, and where bombs and guns caused more destruction, the winter has intensified the bitterness that was already widespread in the autumn.. Now, as then, . the correspondent says, this bitterness is directed against the military government. It is not clear what Dr. Schumacher, the chairman of the Social Democrat Party meant by his recent phrase, victory implied total responsibility,' but most Germans in the_ British zone take it as meaning that the “Englishman rules us; therefore, it is his fault that everything is still in a muddle.” The muddle is not so great, as the Germans are inclined to think and, indeed, the cause of much of their present misery, namely, the recurrent food scarcity in Hamburg and the Ruhr, cannot be attributed to the inefficiency of either the military government or its parent, the Control Commission. Whatever it may have been earlier, primary cause of the recent scarcities has been the freezing of all means of communication, which happened in peace time also, though then the existence of foodstuffs in the towns meant that the delay was an irritation, whereas now it can be near to a disaster. But all this is lost on the Germans, who feel that the military government ought to have thought of something during the summer.

2,000,000 Tons of Food. To point out that more than 2,000,000 tons of foodstuffs were imported into the British zone last year, mostly at the British taxpayers’ expense, brings the reply that the Germans do not want to be dependent on anyone’s bounty, but to pay their own way by using their traditional skill and industry. Such is the German mood in the British zone, the correspondent adds, and such it. is likely to remain till the British administration can place before the Germans a comprehensive policy which suggests that something will be done immediately. ♦