GERMANY: Thirteenth Month

Inside Germany, home-front morale sprang little fissures. Basic trouble: a food shortage.

In Berlin a 27-year-old woman was beheaded for snatching another woman’s purse. Execution for such trivial offenses was decreed to help stop the flow of stolen ration cards into the hands of speculators.

A Reich Food Administration spokesman explained his problem: “. . . loss of the agricultural district in the east is a difficulty. . . . Our supply organization is now sharply strained . . . strictest rationing and best organization are necessary for us to get through these twelve months [of 1944]. The millions of foreign workers we must feed make, so to speak, a thirteenth month.”

Bickering between the army and civil officialdom was widespread. Inspired press campaigns instructed soldiers not to turn grumbling into a habit, warned them that the sorely tried home front will not stand for it.