INSIDE GERMANY

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20629, 9 August 1941, Page 6

INSIDE GERMANY

ALL MEN MOBILISED

SHORTAGE OF LABOUR DAMAGE BY AIR RAIDS (Elec. Tel, Copyright—United Press Assn.) (Reed. Aug. 9, 1.30 p.m.) WASHINGTON, Aug. 3. A foreign diplomat, recently transferred from Germany to Washington, said that practically all German men between the ages of 18 and 65 years were now in uniform. He estimates that more than 90 per cent of ablebodied German males have been mobilised. Germany was relying upon women and about 1,500,000 French, Polish, Czech and Belgian prisoners to work the farms, factories and mines. The Poles were assigned to the mines and heavy labour, while the French prisoners, still in tattered uniforms, are preferred as farmers. Belgian and Dutch women have been imported to do housework. The official said that the Royal Air Force bombings of Hamburg, Bremen and the Rhineland had caused enormous destruction to industries and harbours, but the Krupp armament works at Essen and other war factories in the Ruhr had escaped serious damage. He believes that this is because they are protected by dense clouds of artificially manufactured fog.

He said that wherever he went he found great numbers of German families who had lost their men, but it was considered unpatriotic for women to cry over their dead or openly discuss their losses. The cost of living was mounting, and the army demands had intensified the shortages of food, textiles and footwear.