Gruss und Kuss

To hungry friends and relatives in Germany after World War I, Germans in the U. S. sent many a neat package of sausage, chocolate, coffee, soap, with Gruss und Kuss (Greetings and Kisses). The practice became popular again when Hitler ordered the Nazis to stick out their chests, pull in their stomachs, get ready for World War II. Last fall, as German belts began to tighten behind the British blockade, a stream of food packages began to flow from the U. S. to Germany, through neutral countries.

Scores of German travel agencies in the U. S., advertising special combinations of gift Pakete in German-language newspapers, handled this traffic. Prices were high. A Pakete containing 2 Ibs. of butter, 2 Ibs. of cheese, 2 Ibs. of condensed milk, 1 Ib. of lard, 1/2Ib. of coffee, 1/2Ib. of cocoa cost $5.95. The cost of sending 8 Ibs. of butter: $7.50. (Pounds were German pounds, slightly larger than U. S.) Cost did not discourage senders. Fortra Corp. of Manhattan declared it had placed 30,000 food packages in Germany in less than three months, was doing a volume of business exceeding $1,000,000 a year.

Well aware were the British of this leak in their blockade. To plug it, they had stopped U. S. ships on the high seas (the same sort of thing that brought on the War of 1812), had seized and opened U. S. mails (a criminal offense). They had even confiscated a ton of air mail from the American Clipper as it landed in Bermuda. Explained a spokesman of the Ministry of Economic Warfare in London: "If it was generally known that we were not examining the mails, they would prove first-class methods of smuggling contraband into Germany." British claim was that of 25,000 packages examined in three months, 17,000 did contain "contraband"; besides food and food orders, cash was being sent in Argentine pesos, Swedish kroner, other foreign currency, to bolster Germany's dwindling supply of foreign exchange; also diamonds, pearls, and maps of "potential military value."

Secretary of State Hull had protested in strongly measured language, got no satisfactory answer. To a note in which he conceded the right of the British to search parcel-post packages at Gibraltar but complained that U. S. ships had been discriminated against, subjected to unreasonable delay, he got no answer at all. Last week, banning the shipment of "articles or materials" by air mail, the U. S. indicated that it thereby removed any further excuse for a repetition of the Bermuda incident.

Many a U. S. citizen wondered why: 1) Britain was thus jeopardizing U. S. good will: 2) The State Department did not take a stronger stand. The U. S. had economic weapons to force Britain to show due respect, could send naval escorts to convoy merchant ships. What if a U. S. vessel should defy British patrol boats at Gibraltar, refuse to stop and submit to a search? One steamship company, anxious to get a vessel past Gibraltar, thought of ordering its skipper to do just that--shut off all radio communication, black out and try to slip through. Such an incident might easily transcend the adventure of the City of Flint, the U. S. freighter which was captured by the Germans, detained by the Russians, freed by the Norwegians and returned to Baltimore last week under its own flag.

Meanwhile the German travel agencies were still busy last week getting butter, lard, eggs, mit Gruss und Kuss, through the British blockade to butterless, lardless, eggless Nazis. Let the verdammten EngIaender search all the U. S. ships and planes they wanted to, it would make little difference. With understandable complacency, the president of Fortra Corp., one R. T. Kessemeier, announced that the German agencies were sending their food orders by wireless and cable.

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