GIRLS FOR GERMAN FARMS

Waikato Times, Volume 124, Issue 20853, 11 July 1939, Page 5

GIRLS FOR GERMAN FARMS

A great number of young Germans, chiefly girls under 25 years of age. are being drafted for work regarded by Nazi authorities as of State and political importance, cables Sign’d Schultz from Berlin to the Chicago Tribune. Under a decree issued by Field-Mar-shal Hermann Wilhelm Goering as chief of the Nazi Four-Year Plan for economic independence, authorities are empowered to conscript every ablebodied German for work. The penalty for failure to comply with the order is six months in prison. Many of the girls summoned to the . labour exchanges protested in vain and I sometimes in tears against the work * allotted to them. In most cases it was j agricultural work or labour in arma- j ment factories. Some of the girl* held compara- I lively well-paying jobs as stenograph- J ers or as domestic servants. They were unwilling to change these oceu- J pat.ons for jobs as farm helpers with I

pay of 11 dollars (£2 15s) a week, not counting deductions for taxes, social insurance fee, and cost of transportation. Since the farm Jobs allotted to the girls were for the most part 60ine distance away from their homes transportation fares represent a considerable deduction in pay. One girl pleaded that she was to he married in three weeks. She and i the other girls, who protested against the work given them, were told by labour exchange officials that they were liable to tin* maximum sentence of stx months in prison and confiscation of Hie I ill mr b wk. This would make it impossible for them to accept a new i job. | The Reich Labour Trustee of Hran- ; denburgh io-da> ruled that wages of stenographers may not be increased I unless they *et less than I*9 15s u 1 month. Jf a stenographer lakes another Job her new employer is forI hidden to raise her salary until after | she h •* worked six month* A Berlin Court lined ,n employer j £'*o for increasing the pay of j, 1 I without permission of the authorities.