More to follow...Transit through Germany
Poles travelling to France, usually opt for the route through Berlin, using one of the many international train services between Warsaw and Paris. Meanwhile, the route which runs through Southern Germany, from Breslau through Dresden, Chemnitz, Nuremberg and Karlsruhe to the border
at Kehl-Strasbourg is incomparably more interesting. Apart from more varied landscape, a carriage from Warsaw is connected to a typical German long-distance train. At every major station a lot of people gets in and gets out, and each compartment witnesses German passengers from various districts of the Third Reich, from different social classes and professions. Thus, although these days in Germany people generally not very willingly gets into conversations with strangers, longer and mostly monotonous journey loosen tongues, especially women ones.
Consequently, the casual spectator, who knows a little German, often has opportunity to hear interesting conversations.
Here is an authentic account from one such trip, which took place on this very route at the end of July. Several hours spent entirely in a train
carriage on the territory of the Third Reich.
In Breslau, into the compartment in which there were two of us - lady Frenchwoman and I - are getting three German women, typical housewives, absorbed in their daily business. After breaking the first ice conversation turns immediately to household worries. Two subjects stand out: lack of fats and fruits. Fats are distributed in very meager quantities, fruits appear in larger quantities, but only from time to time. Minor luxuries, which once diversified monotony of the menu, disappeared completely.
At one point one of the women sighs and recalls that for a very, very long time has not seen "Schlagsahne" (Whipped cream). The second nods and adds that she was most recently in Vienna, but even there you can not get this favorite delicacy. The third, lowering voice to a whisper declares:
- Imagine that I had 'Schlagsahne' three days ago.
- Where, where? - her companions demanded to know.
Confused and clearly unhappy about that she went too far in confessions, woman answers:
- Oh! öffentlich nicht! (Not in public!).
After half an hour of conversation, one of the German women takes up knitting. She pulls ball of wool out of the bag. Surprisingly does not start the job immediately, but takes out old wool sock from the bag. She disassemble it and mixes thread with the thread from new ball. My traveling companion, a Frenchwoman, blinks to me knowingly. The old wool is true old, but always wool. And what's new ball made of - only God, and German chemists know!
Life in the Third Reich - July 1939
Life in the Third Reich - July 1939
Article below appeared in August 1939 edition of Jewish monthly business magazine "Commercial review" published in Warsaw, Poland before WWII.
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michael mills
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Re: Life in the Third Reich - July 1939
A typical example of Polish propaganda during the summer of 1939, when tensions were very high.
The aim of the propaganda was to spread the idea that the German population was on the verge of starvation and incapable of waging war, and thereby reassure the Polish people that they had nothing to fear from the impending war with Germany, since the Polish armed forces would quickly prevail over a demoralised and disaffected Wehrmacht.
Another theme in Polish propaganda was that German soldiers were deserting en masse because of lack of food, and that the German armed forces would quickly disintegrate once war broke out.
The aim of the propaganda was to spread the idea that the German population was on the verge of starvation and incapable of waging war, and thereby reassure the Polish people that they had nothing to fear from the impending war with Germany, since the Polish armed forces would quickly prevail over a demoralised and disaffected Wehrmacht.
Another theme in Polish propaganda was that German soldiers were deserting en masse because of lack of food, and that the German armed forces would quickly disintegrate once war broke out.
Re: Life in the Third Reich - July 1939
Story continues...
More to follow...On the border of Silesia and Saxony three men with appearance of German workers enter compartment. They don't have any luggage, so we were surprised to find out that they were going all the way to the French border. When in addition one of them mentions that he parted with his family
couple of months ago, things begin to interest me. I do not show this however, retreating into a corner, but paying attention.
In fact, our travel companion - a German woman - starts to ask lot's of questions.
It turns out that these workers employed in construction of roads and highways, previously worked in the area in which they lived together with their families, but the day before they got notification that they have 48 hours to get to Karlsruhe. They show notices around. They look like mobilization cards, with free train ticket attached.
- We are supposed to replace the Czechs, who worked there, but recently had been moved to other area - informs one of workers.
Probably, I think, it's too close to the French border to employ Czechs...
German women, curious, are flooding workers with questions. They are interested how they live, how much they earn and what they get to eat at this kind of work. As involuntary listener I have the opportunity to learn, that the workers employed in the construction of highways work currently 11 hours a day and receive for this gross 60 pfennig per hour. From that taxes, organizational contributions, and the cost of living is deducted, so that what remains is at most the half of that amount. They live together in barracks and they eat together. Food consists of bread, and black coffee without sugar at breakfast; soups, meat and potatoes for lunch; and dinner again with bread and coffee.
The menu does not impress any of us, especially it is not difficult to imagine fluid they get to drink as coffee, as even coffee in the Mitropa restaurant car is a mixture of ersatz coffee and chicory.
One of the German women looking more well-off than others, is not impressed with their diet and she clearly says so.
However, it causes quite an unexpected reaction from them. They emphasize that they have no reason to complain.
- We are better than at home - states one of them - we have, after all meat for lunch every day!
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michael mills
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Re: Life in the Third Reich - July 1939
It is interesting to read all this Polish pre-war propaganda. As long as it is not confused with the reality of life for the general German population in 1939.
It is important also to realise why this propaganda about the allegedly terrible conditions of life in Germany was being circulated in Poland in the summer of 1939.
It is important also to realise why this propaganda about the allegedly terrible conditions of life in Germany was being circulated in Poland in the summer of 1939.
Re: Life in the Third Reich - July 1939
The food shortages were real:
There weren't any distorting the reality propaganda campaigns before the war in Poland. The strength of the Polish Army was exaggerated but the rest of the problems, like disparity in military power were swept under the carpet and didn't mention. Stories like that above were published in the earlier years too.By the summer of 1936 the grain stock, which in early 1934 had stood at 3.5 million tons, had been drawn down to the dangerous level of less than 700,000 tons. This was barely enough to ensure continuity to the new harvest.
Already in the summer of 1935 there had been talk of the need to introduce ration cards for bread. For obvious reasons, this was deemed to be politically unacceptable.
Instead, the RNS (food production regulatory body) resorted to an organized programme of substitution through which bread flour was diluted with maize meal and even potato starch.
In relation to meat and butter the regime was more forceful. To dole out the scarce supply of butter, a discreet system of rationing was introduced in the autumn of 1935, in the form of customer lists kept by the retail outlets.
Similarly, the meat supply could not be completely insulated from the impact of the disastrous potato failure in 1935. To ensure that there were sufficient potatoes for human consumption, the RNS culled the pig population and pushed through a sharp increase in the price of pork products.
The Wages of Destruction by Adam Tooze
Re: Life in the Third Reich - July 1939
Story appeared towards the end of magazine and seems to be a casual holiday period piece, not a propaganda. Anyway who's propaganda exactly? Poland's Sanacja regime was influencing Jewish business press ? Somehow I doubt it, especially after looking at other articles with heated discussions on variety of issues.
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michael mills
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Re: Life in the Third Reich - July 1939
The Jewish business press probably did not produce the propaganda, but just copied propaganda put out by Polish sources.
It needs to be realised that a lot of the propaganda about German weakness was not produced by the Polish Government but rather by elements opposed to the Sanacja regime, such as the National Democrats. The anti-Sanacja elements in Poland were particularly anti-German, and were the ones that most wanted war with Germany, seeing such a war (in alliance with Britain and France) as a means of achieving westward expansion.
But the Jewish press was also displaying a lot of wishful thinking about Germany and the prospects for an improvement in the lot of the Jews there. On the one hand, there were articles claiming that the Hitler regime was very unpopular and about to be overthrown, on the other hand there were articles claiming that Hitler had got married and as a result was turning into a kinder, gentler person, less hostile to Jews.
The essential point is that stories published in Jewish magazines in Poland in the summer of 1939 cannot be regarded as an accurate and unbiased representation of conditions in Germany at that time.
It needs to be realised that a lot of the propaganda about German weakness was not produced by the Polish Government but rather by elements opposed to the Sanacja regime, such as the National Democrats. The anti-Sanacja elements in Poland were particularly anti-German, and were the ones that most wanted war with Germany, seeing such a war (in alliance with Britain and France) as a means of achieving westward expansion.
But the Jewish press was also displaying a lot of wishful thinking about Germany and the prospects for an improvement in the lot of the Jews there. On the one hand, there were articles claiming that the Hitler regime was very unpopular and about to be overthrown, on the other hand there were articles claiming that Hitler had got married and as a result was turning into a kinder, gentler person, less hostile to Jews.
The essential point is that stories published in Jewish magazines in Poland in the summer of 1939 cannot be regarded as an accurate and unbiased representation of conditions in Germany at that time.
Re: Life in the Third Reich - July 1939
You raised several valid concerns Michael, but actually none of them apply to the story.
Nobody is starving, nobody is deserting, nothing about Hitler's regime being unpopular or Hitler getting married.
So why do you come up with all these?
You also dismissed the story as propaganda before it was presented in full. A bit strange reaction, unless your point is that everything written in Poland was a propaganda. I don't find this as balanced and unbiased approach, rather an overreaction.
Anyway readers are perfectly capable of forming their own opinions and I value yours. But in this particular example I disagree!
Nobody is starving, nobody is deserting, nothing about Hitler's regime being unpopular or Hitler getting married.
So why do you come up with all these?
You also dismissed the story as propaganda before it was presented in full. A bit strange reaction, unless your point is that everything written in Poland was a propaganda. I don't find this as balanced and unbiased approach, rather an overreaction.
Anyway readers are perfectly capable of forming their own opinions and I value yours. But in this particular example I disagree!
Re: Life in the Third Reich - July 1939
Well, as to valid concerns I would challenge anyone to provide a reasonable source - even a single article for statements like: the National Democrats were anti-German (in some meaningful way not just because they preferred close ties with Russia), that they wanted a war with Germany, or the Jewish press was displaying a lot of wishful thinking.
All the main Polish, Jewish (including Commercial review), National Democrats' newspapers from that era are freely available on Internet. Endecja dailies and weeklies are especially well represented even the most radical like Prosto z Mostu.
Commercial Review was a serious business-like publication and again I would challenge anyone to find a single example of warmongering or even wishful thinking there.
To the end both Polish and Jewish press was non-aggressive, civil and calm - at least in comparison with our modern media which those people certainly would see as neurotic and trollish.
The truth is that to the Poles and the Polish Jews living in a country where food was dirt cheap and plentiful the Nazi Germany with their rationing and potato starch bread was a weird and simultaneously easy to ridicule country.
Equally weird and easy to ridicule was the compulsory and total mobilization of children, youngsters and young men through Jungvolk, Hitlerjugend, Landjahr, Landhilfe and Arbeitsdienst (the mentioned above workers with their mobilization cards and driven like cattle from place to place were probably from the compulsory Arbeitsdienst).
It wasn't the Poles or the Jews but the simple fact that at the end of the thirties Germany became a seriously weird country.
Below the article as published in Przegląd Handlowy, after seventeen years in circulation it was their last edition, published days before the WW2:
All the main Polish, Jewish (including Commercial review), National Democrats' newspapers from that era are freely available on Internet. Endecja dailies and weeklies are especially well represented even the most radical like Prosto z Mostu.
Commercial Review was a serious business-like publication and again I would challenge anyone to find a single example of warmongering or even wishful thinking there.
To the end both Polish and Jewish press was non-aggressive, civil and calm - at least in comparison with our modern media which those people certainly would see as neurotic and trollish.
The truth is that to the Poles and the Polish Jews living in a country where food was dirt cheap and plentiful the Nazi Germany with their rationing and potato starch bread was a weird and simultaneously easy to ridicule country.
Equally weird and easy to ridicule was the compulsory and total mobilization of children, youngsters and young men through Jungvolk, Hitlerjugend, Landjahr, Landhilfe and Arbeitsdienst (the mentioned above workers with their mobilization cards and driven like cattle from place to place were probably from the compulsory Arbeitsdienst).
It wasn't the Poles or the Jews but the simple fact that at the end of the thirties Germany became a seriously weird country.
Below the article as published in Przegląd Handlowy, after seventeen years in circulation it was their last edition, published days before the WW2:
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michael mills
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Re: Life in the Third Reich - July 1939
The article in Przeglad Handlowy is not just a simple tale of a train journey through Germany. There is only one theme running through it, that of how bad material conditions are in Germany.
As for the wishful thinking of the Jewish press in Poland, my source for that information was the book by the late Joseph Marcus, " Social and Political History of the Jews in Poland, 1919-1939". The story about Hitler getting married is mentioned is that book, along with many other examples of lurid reports, about Hitler dying or being overthrown.
Most of the examples quoted by Marcus were drawn from the Yiddish newspaper "Haint", the largest Jewish newspaper in Poland. He states that as the war psychosis became more intense in Poland during the summer of 1939, the wishful thinking in the Jewish press became m ore and more pronounced, leading to wildly improbable reports such as that of Hitler getting married and becoming a sensitive New-Age guy.
As for the wishful thinking of the Jewish press in Poland, my source for that information was the book by the late Joseph Marcus, " Social and Political History of the Jews in Poland, 1919-1939". The story about Hitler getting married is mentioned is that book, along with many other examples of lurid reports, about Hitler dying or being overthrown.
Most of the examples quoted by Marcus were drawn from the Yiddish newspaper "Haint", the largest Jewish newspaper in Poland. He states that as the war psychosis became more intense in Poland during the summer of 1939, the wishful thinking in the Jewish press became m ore and more pronounced, leading to wildly improbable reports such as that of Hitler getting married and becoming a sensitive New-Age guy.
Re: Life in the Third Reich - July 1939
Next bit.
Breakfast time. Everyone is getting ready to eat. I take out the bread, butter, sliced meats and fruits. I'm having lots of butter with my bread. One of workers who already knew I was travelling from Warsaw and whose breakfast consists exclusively of dry bread, can not hide his astonishment.
"Kommt das alles aus Polen?" (Is this all from Poland?) - he asks.
You can see that he believed in stories about scarcity in Poland and he is now clearly confused.
I confirm and share butter with him, he spreads it carefully on bread and makes sure nothing is left on the knife.
I accidentally look at the "Völkischer Beobachter" which a passenger reads in the corner of the compartment. I can see a full-page article, illustrated with photographs, with a big screaming headline "Bauern hungern im reichsten Lande der Welt" (Farmers are starving in the richest country in the world). Article is about ... the USA.
Re: Life in the Third Reich - July 1939
1936, from the Polish weekly Mucha:
2 millon pigs are being sent to Germany.
Reporter: Why are you crying, pig?
Pig: They are sending us to Germany. The Germans are starving, and we will be starving there even more.
I really can't understand the jumping to the conclusion, the carelessness of writing of people like the late Joseph Marcus.
Maybe it is true "Haint" was the largest Yiddish newspaper - among over 300 others published by the Polish Jews. But did he know Yiddish and Polish sufficiently to make that judgment himself? Or he simply copy/paste from some Western or German source?
The Jews wrote a lot but actually their main source of information was foreign press. Many of them were the so called 5 groszys newspapers (penny press) and I'm quite sure full of rumours in the vein Hitler is dying. I suppose many of those writers didn't wish Hitler a long life too. But nothing unusual in this, people generally hate their political opponents and like to make fun of them.
There wasn't any invisible hand of the Government forcing them to write this, the others the British, French, Soviets were derided in the same or even more brutal manner.
A to the war psychosis I could ask for actual examples, Jewish or Polish and I'm sure I will be waiting till the sun turns supernova for them.
That man traveled through Germany so he wrote what he saw, maybe he exaggerated a little but certainly not too much. After all the austerity was intended by the Nazi leaders:
2 millon pigs are being sent to Germany.
Reporter: Why are you crying, pig?
Pig: They are sending us to Germany. The Germans are starving, and we will be starving there even more.
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Maybe it is true "Haint" was the largest Yiddish newspaper - among over 300 others published by the Polish Jews. But did he know Yiddish and Polish sufficiently to make that judgment himself? Or he simply copy/paste from some Western or German source?
The Jews wrote a lot but actually their main source of information was foreign press. Many of them were the so called 5 groszys newspapers (penny press) and I'm quite sure full of rumours in the vein Hitler is dying. I suppose many of those writers didn't wish Hitler a long life too. But nothing unusual in this, people generally hate their political opponents and like to make fun of them.
There wasn't any invisible hand of the Government forcing them to write this, the others the British, French, Soviets were derided in the same or even more brutal manner.
A to the war psychosis I could ask for actual examples, Jewish or Polish and I'm sure I will be waiting till the sun turns supernova for them.
This is because the intention was to show how bad material conditions were in Germany. Nothing wrong with that, after all it was a newspaper, its job was to report such things.michael mills wrote:The article in Przeglad Handlowy is not just a simple tale of a train journey through Germany. There is only one theme running through it, that of how bad material conditions are in Germany.
That man traveled through Germany so he wrote what he saw, maybe he exaggerated a little but certainly not too much. After all the austerity was intended by the Nazi leaders:
We can do without butter, but, despite all our love of peace, not without arms. One cannot shoot with butter, but with guns. 1936, Joseph Goebbels
Guns will make us powerful; butter will only make us fat.
1936, Hermann Göring