Forced Labour

Manawatu Times, Volume 64, Issue 173, 25 July 1939, Page 2

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 Sigrid Schultz from Berlin to the Chicago Tribune. Under a decrc issued by Field-Marshal Hermann Wilhelm Gocring, as chief oi the Nazi Four-year Plan for economic independence, authorities aro empowered to conscript every able-bodied German for work. The penalty for failure to comply with the order is six months in prison. Alany 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 II dollars (£2 15s) a week, not counting deductions for taxes, social insurance fee, and cost of transportation. Since the farm jobs allotted to the girls were for the most part some distanco 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 wero liable to the maximum sentenco 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 Branden brug to-day ruled that wages of stenographers may not be increased unless they get 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 lined an employer £BO for increasing the pay of his staff without permission of tho authorities.