The People & the Future

To the plain people of Germany the future is a blank space--when they have time to think of it. Mostly they don't, since the present holds too many problems of bare existence. But last week, in flattened Frankfurt, TIME Correspondent Percy Knauth found a German civilian, ex-mayor of a nearby town, who had thought earnestly about the future. Knauth's report:

This German is an expressive, voluble man, and he grasped his head with both hands and said: "When I start thinking about the problem of reconstruction alone my head swims. How in God's name are we ever going to rebuild this city? And it's not only this city, it's practically any city of any size in Germany. How are we going to rebuild our industries? What are we going to do about food? Where are we going to get clothes, furniture, anything people need to live?"

A Nation of Ants. The only final solution this man could think of was drastic reduction of all standards of living in Germany to a common denominator lower than anything man has known since the Middle Ages. Their lives, he said, should be devoted only to reconstruction, which is about the only thing the Germans have to live for.

"If we become a nation of ants," he said, "we may succeed. We must each do our small share. Those who have homes must help those who haven't. How will we pay for all this? We won't. We will be a nation without rnoney--our money is no good anyway. We will all draw the same rations, all do our share of work, all draw the same kind and amount of clothing--gradually then perhaps we will be able to rebuild our cities, industries, what we need to live. But it makes my head swim."

Nobody can realize the cataclysmic nature of this catastrophe until he has seen the miles & miles of ruins, and talked with the people who live in them. They are beginning to understand now that they are going to have no help in reconstructing their country.

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