GERMANY: Fruits of Victory

Germans, nourished for the past eleven months on a staple diet of promises and threats, were suddenly commanded last week to partake of the fruits of victory. Adolf Hitler, back from the wars for a short vacation at his Alpine snuggery, rescinded his ban on dancing and decreed that his countrymen could dance on Wednesdays and Saturdays between 7 p.m. and curfew. He also granted them permission to tune in on Nazi-occupied Norway, Belgium, The Netherlands and France, but still forbade them under pain of beheading to listen to Denmark, which, at least theoretically, is not “subject to German sovereignty.”

These good deeds done, generous Adolf Hitler scudded away from sweltering Berlin to cool Bayreuth for four hours of Gdtterddmmerung and a visit with British-born Winifred Wagner, daughter-in-law of the great Richard and a soul mate whose name was long coupled romantically with the Führer’s. This year’s Wagnerian Festival was in the spirit of Hitler’s Europe: no admission tickets, fashionable guests or foreigners, but a popular lecture before each opera to explain to das Volk what Wagner is all about. It was Hitler’s gift to the nation, and he commanded 70,000 industrial workers, farmers and soldiers to enjoy it before it closed at the end of July. Last week he sat among munitions workers and disabled soldiers who had been brought to Bayreuth in special trains to enjoy socialized Kultur.

Egg Eaters Rejoice. More satisfying to hungry Germans were a few substantial fruits of victory that became available last week and began to grace the German table. Following seven lean years, seven fat years were just around the corner, Germans assured one another. “With Holland our vegetable garden, France our vineyard, Denmark our dairy, Poland our slaughterhouse, the East our wheat fields, the Southeast our orchards, and Italy our little harvest-helper, what more do we want except some real coffee and tea?”

Some meat cuts were still a rarity last week but better-class German restaurants included snails, lobster, frogs’ legs, crabs, trout and caviar in their menus while promising their customers succulent Schweinebraten and Wiener Schnitzel to be carved from one million Danish pigs and 10,000 cattle condemned for slaughter because of a fodder shortage. Supplies from Denmark and Holland increased the butter ration from three to four ounces weekly and egg eaters received three to four more eggs monthly. Markets displayed fewer kinds and smaller quantities of green vegetables than last summer, but there were constant promises of shipments from Alsace-Lorraine. An average of 100 railway carloads of fresh vegetables arrived from Holland every day but most of these were sent into the Ruhr industrial district to provide additional vitamins for nerve-racked workers harassed nightly by British raiders. Bibulous Berliners, nourishing a long thirst in anticipation of cracking the enormous stocks of wine and champagne captured in France, heard with disappointment that these stocks are being preserved intact for later conversion into foreign exchange—probably in the U. S.

Sobering news to a victory-drunk nation was the announcement that after Aug. i the bread ration would be reduced.