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Show EUROPE'S LITTLE PEOPLE 1946 'Alles Kaput Germans Complain As They View Destroyed Cities By PAULINE FREDERICK WNU Foreign Correspondent. HAMBURG (ENGLISH ZONE), GERMANY. It was obvious that Frau Hohlman was not satisfied with her lot. She said it was cold and it was, with little heat from the tiny stove. But I could have led her to shacks and underground under-ground hovels where there was even less heat and no substantial sub-stantial walls to keep out the weather such as surrounded her. he was profuse in his thanks. He pointed with pride to the little pile of brush and the stump In the yard which furnished fuel. The pretty, runny-nosed baby smiled, too.) "Alles kaput," said Frau Hohlman, Hohl-man, using the current German expression ex-pression in describing what had happened hap-pened to their old home when a bomb hit it. But here she lives today with her husband who works In a margarine factory, and with her married daughter whose husband is still She also said there was not enough food black bread, marmalade marma-lade and coffee for breakfast, soup and potatoes for lunch, and so on. She poured on the table a few pieces of cracked grain to show me what they were eating; then carefully care-fully picked up every piece of it and put It back In the box as though it were a precious stone. But Frau Hohlman was more fortunate for-tunate than a lot of her country women. She had chickens In her back yard. And when I accidentally got a peep into her pantry, I saw two long loaves of bread, two and a half rolls of what was probably margarine, and a can that undoubtedly un-doubtedly contained food. Not all German larders are like that. Frau Hohlman is fortunate enough to live in a prefabricated house. She was wearing a blue-checked apron and blue sweater. She did not know I was coming, but she admitted me, although a little suspiciously, to the combination kitchen-living room and bedroom where there was a bed in one corner with the red feather pillows pil-lows turned back to air. Fuel and Food Scarce. The furniture consisted of a cupboard, cup-board, a table, chairs, a radio and a small wood stove with some sticks drying in the oven. A large double window framed in muslin curtains opened to the garden. The other room of the cottage had two beds in it, and a dresser. It. too, had a large window. The place was light and airy, although small. (I visited another prefabricated house where a cheerful, emaciated young man in his 20's lived with his wife and year-old baby. I saw their pantry, too, and I saw nothing but a small piece of bread and a half-eaten dish of macaroni. But the father said "everything was fine," and when I gave him two cigarettes missmg in Russia. With electricity, the house costs them 24 marks a month. The husband earns about 40 marks a week, and more if he works at night. The Hohlman yard was furrowed for spring gardening. As I talked with Frau Hohlman, the food ration was being met, although al-though there was a great shortage in potatoes and the only vegetables available were a certain amount of turnips and cabbage. But what I could not tell them was the dire picture of the food situation in the British zone unless a miracle happens. hap-pens. It was revealed to me at British Brit-ish military government headquarters headquar-ters at Minden by F. Hollins, director direc-tor of food and agriculture. Famine in British Zone. Mr. Hollins told me that at the rate the bread grain stocks were going go-ing down and not being replenished, pockets of starvation could soon be expected in the British zone. The food permitted the Germans by the British is designed to provide 1,545 calories per day for the average person, with 2,250 for heavy workers, work-ers, 2,809 for very heavy workers and 2,589 for pregnant and nursing mothers. Bread and the cereal products prod-ucts make up 60 per cent of the caloric diet. The city of Hamburg alone uses between 350 and 400 tons of grain a day. Bread is especially vital here because be-cause of the heavy workers in the Ruhr and the Rhineland. In order to keep from cutting the ration before be-fore the spring months when vegetables vege-tables would make it more bearable, bear-able, the British zone needs at least 200,000 tons of wheat a month until the end of June. Only half that amount arrived in February and at a late date, none had been programmed pro-grammed at all for March. When the British took over this zone they found 21 million people, or a million and a half more than lived here in 1939. In bombed-out areas, homes had to be provided as well as food. Of the 5 million dwelling units available in 1939, about half of them have been destroyed de-stroyed by bombing. Anything that can be used to provide a roof is sought by the Germans, but their biggest demand is for food. "We are living on the edge of a precipice," Mr. Hollins told me, "and it would take very little to topple the thing over and make the situation very serious indeed." Once more I am hearing the cry of "bread" as I have heard it in many countries in the last year. And I have been wondering what the answer an-swer will be. |