RAW MATERIALS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24632, 13 June 1941, Page 5

RAW MATERIALS

SHORTAGE IN GERMANY A FRANK ADMISSION ALREADY USING RESERVES (Rec. 8.30 p.m.) RUGBY, June 11. A frank admission both of Germany’s raw material shortage and of the methods adopted to make them good, was made in the German newspaper Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung. “ Germany,” it stated, “ still has some stocks of raw material. To keep them intact and enlarge them Germany will be forced to extend her domination and power. It was vital for Germany to bring into her possession European reserves of all kinds, and for this purpose we jumped on Norway, the Low Countries, Brest, and Salonika. Our ability to continue the war lies not only in Continental reserves and in the production capacity of Europe, but also in Russia’s natural possibilities of supply to us. We are already using our reserves, and myst see to it that they are replaced and enlarged.” The Labour Situation With regard to the labour situation in Germany (where a shortage of “leaders” has been the subject of comment), the Deutsche Verwaltung gives illuminating figures of additional labour employed in Germany during the war. Three million two hundred thousand additional workers, it states, have entered industry and trade since the war. consisting of 100.000 additionally mobilised male Germans, mainly men of advanced age and Germans who have returned to the Reich from abroad. One million five hundred thousand foreign labourers and 300.000 women workers are soon to be greatly increased by 1.300,000 prisoners of war who have been absorbed into the German economic system.. The vast, number of prisoners of war taken in the Balkan campaign will also mean a great contribution to the labour market. The Frankfurter Zeitung points out that women and girls actually constitute the only large German labour reserve which can still be mobilised.