GERMANY: What Would You Do?

• Share

At the bottom of a black hole, deeper than twice the height of the Empire State Building, a coal miner named Josef earned his daily bread this difficult winter. Fifteen European countries, including Germany, have a grim interest in Josef, for their economic revival is closely tied to the amount of coal which he and some 300,000 other miners win from the rich Ruhr mines. In the dust-choked gloom of the pit face TIME Correspondent Percy Knauth talked with Josef, trying to learn why the miners are producing only half as much as before the war.

"Warum?" echoed Josef. "Because we just don't have the strength we used to have—we don't get enough to eat."

Actually, compared with the living standard of other Germans, Josef's is a pampered lot. Besides receiving top rations, he can buy a lunch of vegetable soup with a little meat at the mine daily. If he fulfills his production quota, increased under a speedup bonus system introduced in January, Josef gets extra ration cards entitling him to buy a pound and a half of bacon, a pound of coffee, a half-pound of sugar, two bottles of schnapps and 100 cigarets, as well as some clothing and household goods. Other Germans in the Ruhr have not even been able to buy their flour ration since Christmas.

But Josef explained that lack of food isn't the only reason for the miners' lethargy: "It's also because we don't really care. Right now we get more to eat if we mine more, but the coal itself doesn't do us any good. Part of it is exported to Lord knows where, and what should go to our industry doesn't—we're not allowed to produce all the things we need. Where is the stuff to rebuild our homes? Where are the clothes I need for myself and my wife and children?

"We read about your strikes. You people are allowed to strike—we aren't. Well, nobody can prevent us from coming down here and not working. And what would you do if some day we didn't come at all?"

Bacon & Bituminous. One of the Hannover Mine's two directors, blond, youthful Mining Engineer Erich Ricken, who knows most of his men by their first names, gives this simple picture of the Ruhr coal production problem: "There are 300,000 miners in the Ruhr. What they need more than anything else is fats. Give each of them an extra pound of bacon every week. You would need 600 tons of bacon monthly. Figuring 25 working days, that means 24 tons of bacon per day. To pay for 24 tons of bacon every day you'd need 2,400 tons of coal.

"But I promise you that if my miners get an extra pound of bacon every week, the increase could be 24,000 tons of coal per day—ten times as much as would be needed to pay for this increased fat ration."