When I read this segment of "Germany's Hitler," it brought back memories - both of the One-Pot-Dinner, still a practice to the very end of the war, and of the incredible magic of Christmas inside Germany that I experienced as a child. What an irony that here, in America, at the end of a millennium, even the Christmas Tree is under siege! Again, remember, this was written in 1934 by an outsider who merely observed what was happening in Germany as a country regenerated like a thirsting plant given water:
Dr. Goebbels, one of the most genial and versatile of the men around Hitler, did not fail to bring his bright wits to bear upon the problems of the Winter-Aid. He it was who conceived the idea of the "Eintopfgericht" - the One-Pot-Dinner. Every German, especially everyone blessed with a decent share of this world's goods, was invited throughout the winter on the first Sunday of every month to restrict his main meal to extremely modest (financial) limits, to not more than about 6d, but to give over to a collector, who would call for it the next day, the money which would otherwise have been laid out to furnish the table in the ordinary way. It was as if an Englishman saved what he would have spent on his "cut-from-the-joint and two vegs" - (to say nothing of sweets and coffee) and gave it away and contented himself with - what shall we say? - one good old plate of hash or soup instead, and nothing but that soup.
All the restaurants and hotels were advised to offer on their menus for that first Sunday nothing but this one-dish-dinner, but to charge for it according to usual table d'hote or a la carte meals. The difference, of course, was to be handed over for the Winter-Aid. The success of this original idea was enormous. Like one man the whole people took it up. The venerable President himself ate a one-dish dinner on the first Sunday of every month.
During the winter over twenty million marks came to hand this way. Again, in this instance, the good of it was not confined to mere material things. The poor saw the better-off willingly depriving themselves to help them, and the impression it made was of the best for the conception of "national-socialism." Dr. Goebbels hit on the happy slogan: "Don't spend: deny yourself." This went even further. When a rich man gets up from a well-spread table, and gives something to the poor, it is good, but it is not sacrifice. The sacrifice comes in when a man contents himself with a poor meal instead of a better one, for the sake of giving something away to the man who never feeds well.
Then again - here was a splendid notion. Very often during that winter there was to be heard a cheerful bugling in the streets, and there was to be seen a truckload of soldiers slowly tooling by, blowing for all they were worth. What was this? Why - rummage collecting for the needy. Whenever a hand waved, or a door opened, or someone beckoned from window or corner, the truck hastened up, a couple of men leaped down and ran to obey the summons.
Most people had something they could do without for the Winter- Aid. Here it was an old sofa - quickly handled and bestowed - here a sewing machine, swung up atop, here chairs needing mending, here a bundle of clothes, here oddments for repairs of all sorts, here crockery, here spare pots or pans - up and down the streets went the truck, fanfaronading everywhere, and loading up cheerfully and dexterously like a furniture van!
The workrooms were opened for necessitous girls and women, where those second-hand things could be made over, in return for groceries and shoes.
The happiest Christmas Germany had celebrated for many a long year was the first Christmas of Hitler's Chancellorship. It was the first Christmas after these so-called heathen Nazis had come to power. Up to this time Christmas in Germany had largely been a purely family affair. The tens of thousands of those who had no family, no relatives, no home, perhaps, merely looked on from afar.
Such a thing as this had to be put a stop to in the National Socialist State. On Christmas Eve the Party set up, at its own expense, great Christmas trees before many of the church doors, and in many of the open spaces in the cities. These were all aglitter with frost, and burning candles. Tables were spread beneath them. And bands played the immemorial hymns and carols of the season. Speeches were made calling upon those who were keeping up the feast at home, to remember their poorest brethren without, and to show them the good comradeship and brotherliness which was the very essence of National Socialism. This exhortation closed everywhere with the carol "Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht." (Silent Night, Holy Night)
Then came the crush - the rush - the stampede to the tables where hundreds of good folk forced their way to lay their gifts and offerings and contributions and goodies for the poor. Mountains of these things piled up until there wasn't an inch of room left to bestow a single gift more. Even the ground under the table and round was cluttered with presents. When the donors had really done, and were ready to go back home again, these things were distributed to the lonely and the hungry and the friendless who gladly came forward to receive them. In ways like this, National Socialism sought to prove itself not merely a political creed but a practical befriending of the people.
The Winter-Aid was signally supported by peasants, tradespeople and all sorts of industries, whose carts and wagons were daily to be seen in long rows at the doors of the offices of the Organisation, unloading goods and comestibles for the poor. No end of vouchers were issued by means of which the poor could obtain the necessities of existence without having to expend money. So far as statistics can give any idea of what this amounted to - and statistics take no account of the Christmas presents - the following figures tell their own tale:
Expended:
Coals, about 2,600,000 tons, worth 50,000 marks Potatoes 12,500,000 cwt
Vegetables and flour 1,100,000 cwt.
Bread 60,000 cwt
Tinned Goods 300,000 cwt
Milk 1,000,000 litres
Shoes 180,000 pairs
Cloth 250,000 metres
Garments 1,100,000
Wood 300,000 cwt.
Vouchers 400,000 marks
Cash 75,000,000 marks, part of it from the One-Dish-Dinner source.
The foodstuffs were not always distributed uncooked, but prepared in common kitchens, so that for the equivalent of an English two-pence a hungry man could come by a real good meal. In Munich alone that winter, daily portions were served from fifteen great communal kitchens to no less than three thousand poor people. Seventeen millions of unemployed, casual labourers, widows and orphans were supported through these efforts of the people as a whole.
It was a tough struggle to do it. But it was the wish of the Führer that this great work should be put in hand, that no one in Germany should starve or freeze, and everyone rejoiced to help in its fulfillment. While everywhere else in Europe the melancholy spectacle was only too often to be witnessed of hunger marchers parading the streets, of the workless and the despairing losing all patience and breaking out into strife and bitter class hatred, in Germany at least Adolf Hitler had united everyone in an unparalleled gesture of fraternal charity.
(to be continued tomorrow)
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Thought for the Day:
"There is a land of the living and a land of the dead - and the bridge is love, the only survival."
(Thornton Wilder)
Back to Table of Contents of the Sept. 1999 ZGrams