Baby Buggies?

In every part of the Reich, long lines of workers formed last week at the local branches of German Labor's KdF (Strength through Joy organization). The day had come when they could sign up to buy a luxury never before available to European peasants and proletarians: a motor car. Since Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933, he has driven the conservative tycoons of the German automobile industry frantic by demanding that they produce a really cheap "People's Car." Last May he finally took the job away from them and at Fallersleben laid the cornerstone of a factory nearly two miles long by a mile wide, "The Largest Factory of Any Kind in Europe." This plant is not scheduled to turn out cars until winter after next, but when orders were accepted last week, German workers scrambled so eagerly to sign on the dotted lines that in a few hours every KdF order blank in the Reich had been used up.

While more blanks were being printed, workers tried to get ahead on the waiting lists by applying for cars in blocs of 100 through KdF leaders. All who signed have to begin at once paying installments of five marks ($2) per week toward a car which is to cost about $400, and no interest will be paid on the weekly deposits. If 1,000,000 of Germany's workers subscribe, $104,000,000 will pour in to help build the KdF factory. Meanwhile, batches of apprentices, supplied with free board & lodging, are in training for the "high honor" of working in the new factory.

Dr. Robert Ley, leader of the German Labor Front, bubbled with enthusiasm, even foresaw the use of People's Cars as Nazi baby buggies: "Within ten years every German who works will or can be the owner of a KdF car. No manna falls from heaven! If you want socialistic advantages you must work for them. National Socialism is not weakly but manly Socialism! We hope the KdF car will even raise the German birth rate by encouraging German families to have four or five children to fill it. ... This very year the first section of the KdF factory, which will have an annual production of 450,000 cars, will have a roof over its head!" Taking his cue from the KdF car, radiorating Minister for Propaganda & Public Enlightenment Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels announced last week that on Sept.

1, 1938, he will have ready for sale 100,000 People's Radios at 35 marks ($14) each. This is cheap for a good small set in Europe, where the price of radios is everywhere so high that people continue to use antique models. "We now have 9,500,000 radio sets*--which is 5,500,000 more than before Adolf Hitler became Chancellor," declared Dr. Goebbels. "Now, with the new People's Radio, we shall become the greatest radio country in the world!" Technicians who have inspected the People's Radio say it has been designed to give poor reception of distant i.e., foreign stations, is primarily intended to confine listening as much as possible to German stations.

*The estimated number of radio sets in use in the U. S. (which has a 77% greater population than Germany) is 37,000,000.

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