HOW THEY LIVED

New Zealand Herald, Volume 81, Issue 25053, 17 November 1944, Page 3

HOW THEY LIVED

GERMAN CIVILIANS

LUXURY OF CONQUEST

War correspondents have spent a lot of time trying to determine what sort of life the average German, Herr and Fran Schmitt, led during the four years that Germany ruled most of Europe. My conclusions are that apart from fairly strict regimentation, which the average Germans really seems to enjoy, it was a good life, so good that it is something we must keep in mind when Germany has been beaten, writes a special correspondent of the Daily Mail now in occupied Germany. The truth, as I find it, is that during 1942, 1943 and the early part of 1944 the average German tasted the fruits of conquest and liked them. They liked them so much that even the alleged non-Nazis still think rather nostalgically about them when Herr or Fran Schmitt talks to you about the good old days. They do not mean the pre-Hitler era; they mean 1942 and 1943. They missed coffee, because Europe could not supply it, and some other things, but compared with tho British people tho Germans got the pickings. • The loot was passed round. Much of it is to bo seen here in the homes, homes with larders stocked to bursting point and rooms piled with good furniture, radios, and lpts of things that I make life more agreeable. Cunning of Nazi Leaders The Nazi leaders were cunning enough to let as many Germans as possible see how agreeably the spoils come to the conqueror, and they used the British Empire to stress the point. "See," they said to the hausfrau, "you complain about your son going to war. But this is \vhnt he is bringing you. Now you are beginning to live like an Englishwoman. You are getting good things from the German Empire. "How much better you can raise your children with all these good things, and what a lot more there will be'when we have achieved world domination." It was a good selling line for the ladies. I spent exactly half an hour trying to convince a German peasant woman that British homes are not rolling in loot from the Empire. Finally, she said: "Well, if it isn't in the homes it is somewhere in England." Parts of the small portions of Germany we now occupy are typical of the j Reich. I believe that Herr and Frau Schmitt were better off in many ways than anyone in Britain. The plenty the Nazis had promised was beginning to roll in. Hitler was becoming a real Father Christmas. Transport to bring in the loot was a difficulty, but every German understood that was only a war mishap. More to the point, from the women's viewpoint, was the importation of slave labour from Russia and Poland. Slaves for Domestic Help A German woman was amazed when I told her that few British homes had domestic help any more. For the German hausfrau there was a slave available if she was on the right side of the authorities, and most of them were. And did they make the slaves work! In factories, on farms, and in private homes they were dawn-to-dusk drudges. I was told frankly by a German shopkeeper that what was worrying his wife most was the fact that from now on she looked like having to do all her own housework, including the less pleasant tasks. What would be the Allies' attitude to that? he asked. I told him that his frau had better get busy and get used to it. The women of Germany are certainly going to feci a difference when the crash comes. The very appearance of the German women shows that they have not been suffering. They look sleek and comfortable, their clothes are good, and most of them have an air of well being. In this area, of course, there was bombing, and they were close to the black market sources just across the border. For the men and boys in the Wehrmacht who stayed in Europe and did not get involved in the North African campaign, the good years have been a royal holiday. The officers especially lived as old-time conquerors. Garrison Duty a "Picnic" Headquarters were always located in the most attractive places, like Bagnoles, in Normandy, and Spa, in Belgium. Their set-up in lovely Bagnoles was really enough to make an officer want to stay part of a conquering army all his life. The Germans took over a palatial hotel overlooking the lake, and lived as lords were supposed to live before the income-tax people got at them. Thoy drilled a little and attended to garrison duties in the mornings. The afternoons they spent lazing by the lake or playing tennis. Tho evenings were riotous, with plenty of local wine and imported women and song. For the young Gorman officers and many of the boys in the ranks those were wonderful days and heady. So heady that it is something we must bear in mind. These youngsters have sipped the cup of boing oppressors. In the occupied countries they have minced and strutted and handed out orders, and have gone homo on leave to tell the rest of the family the joys of a soldier's life in the Welirmacht. For tho past three years, at least, every German youngster from seven or eight upward has grown up with tales of the glories of being a soldier. And every village had some regular homecomer who would tell them first hand that those tales were not just legends. Eflect on Youth No wonder some of the toughest fighters we have met since D Day have been the S.S. youngsters, many of them boys of 17 or 18. Soldiering in the Wehrmacht was a wonderful life. There were those subhurnans the Todt workers to do the labouring. AH the real soldiers did was train to fight, drill, march, eat, and drink well and enjoy life. I have even met school-age youngsters in Franco and Belgium who have told me seriously that they thought the German soldiers the luckiest people in the world, wido-cycd youngsters who confessed they thought it must be grand to be a German soldier. Happily not many French or Belgian youngsters thought that way, but the few pointed to the thoughts that must have run through and lived in the minds of the young Nazis in those years before they had to run a lot faster than their thoughts. Many people will say that the hiding we have administered to the Germans these past few months must have exploded a lot of these ideas. Well, that is what I set out to discover in my conference with Germans in the occupied areas, and my visits show that nothing of tho sort has happened. For the average German now under our control those years from 1942 to early in 1944 are a pleasant memory that they do not intend to forget quickly. . JAPAN'S EMPEROR Dr Victor Hoo, Chinese delegate to the world security talks at Dumbarton Oaks, said continuance of the Mikado in Japan should be left to the Japanese people, reports the Washington correspondent of the United Press. Dr Hoo, Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs, suggested in an interview that some other emperor than Hirohito might be chosen, however, Dr Hoo added that lie believed there may be mass suicides in Japan when the battle approaches its end.