FORCED LABOUR

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXXIII, Issue 4808, 10 July 1939, Page 7

FORCED LABOUR

GIRLS FOR GERMAN FARMS. A great number of young Germans, chiefly girls under 25 years of age, are being drafted for work regarded by Nazi authorities as of State and political importance, cables Sigricl Schultz from Berlin to the •'Chicago Tribune." Under a decree issued by Field-Marshal Hermann Wilhelm Goering as chief of the Nazi Four-Year Plan for economic independence, authorities are empowered to conscript every ablebodied German for work. The penalty for failure to comply with the order is six months in prison. Many of the girls summoned to the labour exchanges protested in vain and sometimes in tears against the work allotted to them. In most cases it was agricultural work or labour in armament factories.

Some of the girls held comparatively well-paying jobs as stenographers or as domestic servants. They were unwilling to change these occupations for jobs as farm helpers, -with pay of 11 dollars (£2 15s) a week, not counting deductions for fares, social insurance fee, and' cost of transportation. Since the farm jobs allotted to the girls were for the most part some distance away from their homes, transportation fares represent a considerable deduction in pay. One girl pleaded that she was to be married in three weeks. She and the other girls, who protested against the work given them, were told by labour exchange officials that they were liable to the maximum sentence of six months in prison and confiscation of their labour book. This would make it impossible for them to accept a new job.

The Reich Labour Trustee of Brandenburg ruled that wages of stenographers may not be increased unless they got less than £9 15s a month. If a stenographer takes another job her new employer is forbidden to raise her salary until after she has worked six months.

A Berlin Court fined an employer £BO for increasing the pay of his staff without permission of the authorities. , -■■,