“HEIL, HUNGER”

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVIII, Issue 21556, 19 January 1940, Page 7

“HEIL, HUNGER”

Germany is Disease-RirHen

NAZI SECRETS REVEALED

(Special—By All Mall)

LONDON. December 23.

A startling expesure of the effects on the German people’s health of the six years of Nazi rule has been made by a German doctor.

In his forthcoming book "Heil. Hunger.” Dr Martin Gumpert, the former head of the Beilin City Dispensary for Deformity Diseases, declares that Germany is the most disease-ridden country in Europe; and that the younger generation, which is said to be fanatically pro-Hitler, are smothering the gnawing pains of disease and hunger in alcohol and sex. A victim of Nazi Jew-baiting, Dr Gumpert sacrificed his persona! property to get out of Germany official records of German public health and vital statistics.

Under Hitler, the teetotaller, the consumption of alcohol was doubled. Under Hitler the purist, venereal Infection in the Nazi Army has more than doubled.

Here are some details quoted by the author:

In 1933. there were 79,830 scarlet fever cases; in 1937, 117,544. In 1933 there were 77,340 diphtheria cases; in 1937, 146,733.

Dysentery, a disease of filth, has jumped 300 per cent. The mortality rate has risen by 80,000 per year, and strikes especially at the age-groups, one to 15 and 20 to 45.

In 1936. only 75 per cent of men called to the Colours were fit for service; in 1938, only 55 per cent.

These conditions are reflected in:— the falling marriage rate —12.2 per 1000 in 1934; 8.9 per 1000 in 1937; the alarming number of suicides —4.1 in every 10,000 persons, the Nazi figure being almost as high as the gross figure for the rest of Europe; the increase in the number of industrial accidents —1,789,000 in 1937, and a rise of 435,000 in two years.

Tubercular patients numbering 1,500.000 are forced to engage in “useful work,” those who behave "antlsocjally”—“perhaps they will actually cough” comments Dr Gumpert—“being ruthlessly eliminated.” 'ln Munich only 3.5 per cent of school children are free from rickets. A majority of boys and girls in the Hitler Youth suffer from splayed, twisted or flat feet. The majority of young men In the Labour Service suffer similarly. Between 1937 and 1939. the number of university students who had to be excused from sports because of physical weakness doubled.