MARRIAGE RUSH

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLV, Issue 21279, 24 February 1939, Page 10

MARRIAGE RUSH

HUNT FOR HUSBANDS “LEAP YEAR” IN GERMANY German girls are taking part in the biggest man-hunt the Reich has ever known. For the girls want husbands, and want them quickly. For them, this year is leap year. In Munich alone, it is estimated, every eligible bachelor has received at least three marriage proposals. The reason for this marriage rush is the conscription of female labour in Germany to make up the serious labour shortage. Only married women are exempt from the various jobs which German girls are now forced to take at certain ages. Girls are taken from their families to work on farms; others are warned that if they refuse jobs as maid-servants they will be sent to labour camps. Hitler’s methods are, in fact, driving thousands of girls into loveless marriages. In Vienna the number of marriages since the Anschluss has almost trebled, and the first “Hitler babies” are now arriving (says a correspondent of “The Daily Herald”). Some of these newly wed Hitler couples have been bitterly disappointed, because husbands lost their jobs in party organisations in the recent purge of petty Nazi officialdom. A large number of enthusiastic young Nazi husbands, who enjoyed parading in uniforms and collecting a nice salary for little work, resent being sent to work in arms factories and other industries, where they receive only small wages.