NAZI WAR ECONOMY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 11 September 1942, Page 4

NAZI WAR ECONOMY

TRANSPORT THE WEAKEST LINK RECENT DEVELOPMENTS. USE OF SLAVE LABOUR. It is difficult to gauge recent changes in Germany, a “Manchester Guardian” writer observes, but it seems that a change of course had been made inevitable by certain economic facts, and that at least two political factions have been struggling to become controllers of the new structure. Transport has turned out to be Germany’s weakest link. In the thirties the railways were neglected in favour of motor roads, and the damage then done has never been made good. The roads cannot be properly used for lack of petrol. Winter in Russia has swallowed up rolling-stock, repair equipment, and skilled railway labour at a rate which, as we know from Hitler, was never provided for. For the coming campaign all hope of success must have been dependent on improved railways behind the front. German production, therefore, had to be rearranged to save transport. That meant concentration of work in the largest and best-organised industrial concerns, a method which was tried early in the war but replaced by spreading orders. Secondly, the fresh call-up for the Eastern Front and the spring needs of agriculture have intensified the labour shortage. More foreign labour is to be brought into Germany, even at the cost of reducing production in the occupied countries. Some further labour is also to be obtained by squeezing civilian occupations still more. According to the “Economist” 10 per cent of all bank branches are being closed and all industrial firms have been forbidden to carry on any planning or experimental work for peace-time production. A word of caution may be needed regarding this German labour shortage. When a country like Germany, with more than 5,000,000 foreign slaves in the Reich and command over large outside resources, is still so short of hands that farms and factories are clamouring for labour it must mean two things: 1, that a high proportion of manpower is in the fight services; 2, that plans for war output have been deliberately made too large. The pressure is so" great that, for instance, manufacturers who ovei-;order raw materials are threatened with the death penalty; but that suggests an enormous wav output as well as trouble in fulfilling the programme Little has been heard lately of Di. Funk’s attempt to merge all regional boards into economic chambers under the control of the party Gauleiter. Nearly all the news has been of the opposite kind. Since the formation of the Central Armaments Council by Professor Speer, of the Ministry of Supply, that body seems to have become immensely strong, and it consists entirely of what might be loosely called the Goring faction. The Services, the Four-year Plan Office, and the big industrial leaders form the council. Perhaps as a consequence, a return to business methods is noticeable. The trade associations of the more powerful industries, which had been reduced to regional agents of the Government, have once more emerged as instruments of industrial self-government. What is more, a new Iron and Steel Federation has been set up under the chairmanship of the magna . t , e lt ß °'L c :p_’ ling. It is pretty obvious that some thing big is going on.