NAZI HOME FRONT

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 79, 17 April 1944, Page 2

NAZI HOME FRONT

PRISONER’S IMPRESSIONS QUICK VICTORY UNLIKELY Sydney, April 7. “From my observations in Germany I cannot share the easy optimism of Australian people for an early end to the European war, and a speedy victory against Japan is mere wishful thinking,” said Staff-Sergeant G. R. Johnson, A.1.F., a former prisoner of war, to members of the Australian Natives’ Association.

Since his return five weeks ago he had been amazed a. the complacency and indifference with which the people of Australia faced the problems of war, he added. This was in direct contrast to the Germans, who accepted hardships and privations greater than could be imagined. Total war implied total methods, the extent of which Australians had little conception.

StalT-Sergeant Johnson, who served through the campaigns in the Middle East, Greece and Crete, was working with a Scottish doctor, Major Mackay, at Neukoln Camp, Berlin. Under the terms of the Geneva Convention, protected medical staff were allowed seven hours’ recreation leave in Berlin every week. He visited many other cities and towns in Germany during the two and a half-years he was there. FLIGHT FROM BERLIN Up to* last August the city proper of Berlin had not been touched, he said Only essential services were left after the mass evacuations in July. That was why there was little reference to deaths in the reports of our raids now. In July special trains ran night and day for three- weeks from Berlin to take all the civilians to safe areas in the country. There families were housed in special camps or in homes of residents. “I have looked into the docile, expressionless faces of German people on trams and buses, and realised that they have lost the power of thourrht, for freedom of thought does not exist there.” he continued. “I do not think it humanly possible, even with all the technical devices at our disposal, to unwarp the minds of children in German” for generations to come. Religion is discouraged and discounted. and is almost completely abandoned. I d'd not know of one German who went to church. They were afraid it would indicate a weakness to the ever-watchful Nazis: Clergymen are not. permitted to visit 'he sick in public institutions or practise infant baptism. Many monasteries and convents have been taken over for military use or for the housing nf mothers of illegitimate children. These are encouraged in every possible wav, and the e«-v is alwavs for more men for ♦he Fuhrer. whether within or out of wedlock.” BIG INTERNAL WORKS Almost 75 per cent, of the manpower for industry in Germany was supplied by foreign workers from occupied countries or prisoners of war, StaffSergeant Johnson said. An elaborate card index system of their relatives enabled the Nazis to punish their mothers. wives or children for any attempt to escape from the job. Great railway construction was going on ‘hroughout Germany, and war equipment was moved ’ apirily about on huge flat-top-ped vans. One factory turned out 10 locomotives a day. Although their quality was not high, they did the job required. Every engine bore a great white motto: “Wheels must roll for victory.” Propaganda was terrific, yet scientific. One section was for internal morale and another for international dissemination. Prisoners of war in Germany watched with interest and pride the Allied war effort. By means of letters from home, paragraphs in German papers and an occasional message from the 8.8. C.. they collected a fairly complete picture.