Figures Make No Babies

For ten years Nazi Germany worked with every known device to increase the birth rate of the nation. From an alltime low of 14.7 births per 1,000 population in 1932, the yardstick of the people's "birthjoy" climbed to 20.4 in 1939, sagged only immaterially to 18.8 in the first three years of war. Last September Nazi birthrate booster No. 1, rabbity Dr. Joseph Goebbels, was still able to praise the "fiery zeal" of German propagation.

Then came war with Russia. No propagandist fanfare accompanied 1942's sober figure of 15.2 per 1,000--a rate of decline almost as great as that of World War I. Last week, however, inventive Dr. Goebbels, announcing the figures for the first three months of 1943, proudly displayed "a surprising increase" of 11.4%, not in the birth rate, but in births. He did not volunteer the explanation: no sudden increase in "birthjoy," but inclusion for the first time of Nazi-occupied territories.

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