Life in Germany has not changed much. It is still very easy going for us here inside the compound gates, and yet so very many difficulties and frictions, poverty and distress on the other side of the gates. You may have heard that FIAT men live in Bad Homburg now, which means a great amount of travelling every day. I have been in the field very much during the last few months, and have more and more to work on with the microfilm project. I spend much of my time in the British zone and I can judge with my own eyes that conditions there are anything but good and are deteriorating. More and more plants have to reduce their output, steel production is declining and fewer goods are available in the open market than ever before. It is slightly better in our zone, due to the greater agricultural area and the great amount of money which the Americans are putting into the country. But on the whole it looks pretty bad and if this winter is very cold, it will be anything but lovely. Starvation and famine exist, particularly in the British zone in the big towns of the Rhine and Ruhr. A manager of a factory tells me he and his family of three have been living on four beet roots for the last two days, bread being unobtainable in Dusseldorf as well as potatoes and any other food. The whole country looks like it is becoming a slum. One can only be surprised that there aren’t riots. The conditions in the Russian Zone are not much better and have the added scourge of fear. People do not dare to talk aloud in the tramcars and are arrested and taken from their homes without reason or warrants.
Central Europe is anything but decent. People hate each other and do everything possible to make life disagreeable. You can hardly imagine the attitude of the average Bavarian to the refugees from the East, and the amount of running to the police and denouncing one’s neighbors. The food situation, particularly in towns like Essen or Dussledorf is grim beyond description. People sit in the cold, the light fades out or is dimmed to almost uselessness every day, and there is nothing to eat. Millions of refugees have to be crammed in the overcrowded area. Why one agreed to accept several millions of refugees from Eastern Germany without making provisions to feed them I do not understand. Most of the good will which England and the western democracies enjoyed a year ago has gone. They believe that England is starving them purposely. One has the feeling the Ruhr is near complete collapse.
My mother and some other friends want me to stay in England, but I am hoping to go to the states before very long. I personally never got to like England enough, or to put it better, England never got to like me enough. I always feel there as a stranger. I don’t feel that way with the Americans. I have met many very nice and good people, many rather primitive ones, but on the whole, I like them. I had planned to go to the States during 1946, but the reorganization of the quota system made this impossible.
Central Europe is anything but decent. People hate each other and do everything possible to make life disagreeable. You can hardly imagine the attitude of the average Bavarian to the refugees from the East, and the amount of running to the police and denouncing one’s neighbors. The food situation, particularly in towns like Essen or Dussledorf is grim beyond description. People sit in the cold, the light fades out or is dimmed to almost uselessness every day, and there is nothing to eat. Millions of refugees have to be crammed in the overcrowded area. Why one agreed to accept several millions of refugees from Eastern Germany without making provisions to feed them I do not understand. Most of the good will which England and the western democracies enjoyed a year ago has gone. They believe that England is starving them purposely. One has the feeling the Ruhr is near complete collapse.
My mother and some other friends want me to stay in England, but I am hoping to go to the states before very long. I personally never got to like England enough, or to put it better, England never got to like me enough. I always feel there as a stranger. I don’t feel that way with the Americans. I have met many very nice and good people, many rather primitive ones, but on the whole, I like them. I had planned to go to the States during 1946, but the reorganization of the quota system made this impossible.
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