CONTRAST IN SOAPS

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume 51, Issue 3129, 10 June 1942, Page 8

CONTRAST IN SOAPS

GERMANS WASH WITH CLAY

REDUCTION IN FAT CONTENT The advent of soap rationing in Britain lias shown how much worse off are the Germans and their vassals and the occupied countries. Such soap as {here is contains only a tiny proportion of fat. The rest is clay, which not only fails to clean the body but ruins the poor-quality “ ersatz” clothes now being worn even in the frigid Russian steppes. The German troops are not only dirty but cold. Information received through the British Government’s secret channels shows that whereas in normal times German toilet soap contained 80 per cent of fats, this was reduced to 40 per cent just before the war, and has now fallen as low as 15 to 20 per cent —actually only enough to bind together the remaining 80 to 85 per cent of clay. Britain, on the other hand, has maintained the fat content at the pre-war 82 or 83 per cent. Nazis Bobbed. Their Allies To-day, Germany has only enough toilet soap to provide 3 kilos (6.61 b a year for each inhabitant, and then only by robbing the occupied countries of their share. For although there is enough toilet soap in Europe to supply 2 kilos (4.41 b per head all round, Germany ’s taking 3 kilos for her own people means that the occupied countries get -only just over 1 kilo (2.21 b —about one-seventh of pre-war consumption in Western Europe. Even Germany’s own allies are being robbed to help up the Reich’s ration of 2oz a week. Italy, which used 4.6 kilos (101 b per head a year before the war, now gets only 1.8 kilos (3.21 b and Hungary’s consumption has been cut down from 2.6 to 1.8 kilos.

Despite all wartime difficulties, Britain has been able to give her people 3oz of soap each week. But the fact that it keeps up its pre-war quality has the effect of multiplying the quality many times. The same applies to all other territories in the British Empire.