"Vital Interests"

Proudest achievement of Fuehrer Adolf Hitler's internal policies has been the Nazi solution of former republican Germany's grave unemployment problem. In 1933 there were 7,000,000 unemployed in Germany. Today--according to the Reich's figures--there are only 338,000 unemployed, only 37,000 of these employable. In 1933 there were 12,300,000 workers in Germany. In 1938 there are 20,500,000.

This remarkable unemployment reduction has been achieved by methods strongly condemned by many liberal critics: 1) Replacement of women by men in many fields of work; 2) vast armament and building programs; 3) establishment of compulsory labor camps in which every young man must serve six months before beginning two years' service in the army; 4) growth of Nazi bureaucracy needing more Government employes to handle the complexities and restrictions of German law.

Last week Germany showed that she had overplayed her unemployment solution, had actually created a labor shortage. Scheduled for immediate execution under the Four-Year Plan is the building of the Hermann Goering Iron Works, the production of cheap Volkswagen automobiles promised by Fuehrer Hitler, the rebuilding of Berlin and Munich according to the Fuhrer's ambitious schemes. To provide labor for these and other purely Government projects, Field Marshal Goering, Four-Year Plan Commissioner, decreed a sensational labor conscription law.

Beginning July 1, all "State members"--which includes Jews and other minorities--will be subjected to a draft compelling them to serve on any assigned job, commanded by the Reich Institute for Labor Placement & Unemployment Insurance. This drastic decree will be applied to all regardless of race, sex or occupation. While Nazi authorities gave only vague hints as to the true meaning of the labor draft law, they did deny that it was a war measure. To the disenfranchised, persecuted Jews the decree meant they would soon be working on Fuehrer Hitler's projects. Perhaps the best explanation was given by Commissioner Goering's newspaper Essener National Zeitung: "Private economic life cannot be allowed to carry on to the disadvantage of equally important State economy."

This week Field Marshal Goering extended even further State control over labor. He empowered labor officials to fix maximum rates of pay for work of all kinds, thus clamped down on rising labor costs.

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