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| Click image to enlargify From Picture Post Magazine, July 13, 1940, pp 20-21 |
Under the Labour Front, hours went up, wages came down, in spite of the rapid increase of production in the Reich. Re-armament meant diverting half the national income to war preparations. That meant all ordinary consumption -- food, clothes, and so on -- had to be kept to a minimum. There was only one way of doing this -- hold the wages down. So with the German adult workers' gross wage averaging about 28s. a week, wage rates are actually below crisis level of 1932.
On the other hand, food prices have increased tremendously. As to hours, the official Nazi figures speak for themselves -- ten hours a day for men over eighteen was the normal working day before the war. Now it's the minimum. By permission of the authorities it can be extended to sixteen hours.
Inevitably, the pace doesn't hold. Though the factories and shops be packed with S.S. spies, through exhaustion and desperation German workers began to work slow. As production figures fell off in the Reich, as the Nazi press began to write about "signs of fatigue" among the workers, and the employers decided to yield to the prevailing discontent, and to withdraw certain measures they had imposed at the outbreak of war. On November 27, 1939, all Sunday and holiday bonuses were restored. Soon after, Reich Labour Minister Seldte declared holidays were to be allowed again. At the end of December, the ban on overtime pay was removed. And Dr. Ley, leader of the Labour Front, declared in a public speech "Men and women workers, all this has not happened because the leadership has been forced to retreat before your demands!" That sentence speaks volumes about the attitude of the "German Socialist" Labour Front leaders to the workers.
True, the Nazis made great play of the fat that in the National Socialist state such shameful class distinctions as employer and employee no longer need exist -- henceforth every worker could call himself simply Gefolgschaftsmitglied (personal member), while his boss would be simply Gefolgschaftfuhrer. So, as has been pointed out, the humblest labourer at, for example, the Krupp works, though his wages may be cut to the bone and himself deprived of overtime, has this consolation, that should he ever set eyes on Baron Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, he is perfectly entitled to address him as Herr Personal Leader instead of the old-fashioned Herr General Direktor. [...]
(continued on WWAFF post 10 -- yes, I know this is post 7. Trust me.)
Jay's thoughts: Compelling stuff. The socialists of modern-day Britain increasingly call for the end to all "Big Business" and demand nationalisation of every last business in Britain. Every problem in society, the socialists claim, can be traced to multi-national conglomerates. No doubt, capitalism is not perfect nor will it ever be perfect. But when you look at what happened in Germany in 1930s when the Socialist State took over every last industry, and you see how badly it failed, you have to wonder why on earth people would ever clamour for nationalisation. Socialism will destroy our already tenuous economy.
Look no farther than the NHS, which has grown into a bastion of socialist control and hate against some of the people it is their duty to care for. In its original concept, the NHS was meant to provide the most basic of health care to those who needed it most. It was not a universal health care system. It was meant for the elderly, the poor, for emergencies. It was created out of compassion in a time after the war, when so much had been lost during the fight against fascism and socialism in Europe. It was never intended to grow into the nation's largest employer. It was never intended to be anything at all like it is today, where treatment and surgery is refused to the neediest because they smoke, or are overweight, or imbibe a few too many pints per week. Socialism within the ranks of the NHS has created this mindset -- this "you cost the State too much money to be treated, so we refuse to treat you."
The truth is, there is possibly more than enough money to fund the NHS several orders of magnitude higher than we are doing so now. So-called "free" healthcare for all is surely compassionate, if not utterly unrealistic. It's not free, though. Most of us pay for it through taxes, and we pay dearly even if we never make use of it. The trouble with funding the NHS is that most of the money that could be used to fund it is being spent elsewhere on things we don't need, or simply given away to the disaster that is the European Union as price for our membership, money that is in turn used by technocrats to force laws upon us unwary Britons that we don't want and we don't need, which are in turn rammed through Parliament with barely a whisper of consideration or debate. The problem with the current construct of our local, national and European governments are that they are all primarily socialist, and they do whatever they like with the money they take from us.
We're supposed to thank them for stealing our money and using it for their own gains and against us at every opportunity, they tell us. Well they and everybody else who says "people should pay their fair share" can take a flying leap. Those are the people who are making our lives miserable, and pilfering our opportunities, and crushing our dreams. They are aiming to "control our souls" and we're letting them do it every minute of every day. And for what? Some grand idea that everything is fair and we will all be immortal?
Pull the other one.
Bonus comic:
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| Click image to enlargify |
