File No. 763.72/3481
The Minister in Switzerland ( Stovall) to the Secretary of State
[Received March 11, 11.40 a.m.]
635. Kölnische Zeitung, March 8, publishes significant Reichstag speech of Michaelis, undersecretary, food organization bureau, deploring present serious scarcity of foods in Germany and stating in most emphatic terms immediate necessity for more rigid organization of food supply and distribution as absolutely essential to [Page 65] enable Germany to pull through economically this year. He demands that enforcement of equal distribution of all food products be especially applied to country districts in which most farm products have always been withheld in greater quantities than a uniform rationing would permit.
He also remarked on the noticeable and increasing lack of steadfastness on part of people in bearing sufferings now prevailing. In conclusion he states:
We are now faced by the prospect of what will occur if our efforts do not succeed. The result would be inconceivable. The horrible misery that would befall us were we forced to see that our food supplies are insufficient to enable us to hold out during the last months of the current year can not be pictured in words.
To above the Kölmsche Zeitwng remarks: “No minister has hitherto discussed our domestic situation so sharply, so energetically, or so clearly.”