Why SHOULD Britons starve as our Nazi prisoners grow fat?

ONCE more the Germans surrender in a mass and once more to a British command — this time in Holland, Denmark and north-west Germany.

Field Marshal Montgomery takes the proffered sword of the defeated enemy, and it is supremely fitting that he should do so. He has met the Germans and beaten them in Africa, Italy, France, Holland, Germany and Denmark. He and the men under his command, British, Canadians, Americans, have had the hardest fighting against the stiffest resistance ever since D-Day. They have won magnificent victories.

Now only Czechoslovakia and Norway are left of Hitler’s vast empire. It is unlikely that either will long survive.

The forces at Admiral Karl Doenitz’s command in Norway may look impressive on paper, but they are without the means of continued resistance, even if the will exists, which is doubtful.

A last stand in the north would be the forlornest of forlorn hopes.

Now a new flood of German prisoners will be pouring into the cages. The total must be at least 4½ million taken since the war began, and probably more. They must all be fed, and what they eat leaves less for the people of Britain, her Allies and the half-starved victims of German aggression in Europe.

Yet we go on giving them more than we have ourselves. If they are in working parties, they get twice or three times the ration of the British civilian. Who are they that they should be treated like the pampered pets of Europe? They are of the race who would have trampled Europe under their feet, who have deliberately starved to death thousands of men, women and children, and who have made our own men suffer great privations.

British prisoners are coming home in their thousands. Their thin bodies and wan faces are in marked contrast to the appearance of the German prisoners, who have been living on the fat of our own land.

To make these suffer likewise is contrary to our principles. But it is ridiculous to go on giving them double rations in accordance with the Geneva Convention. That agreement no longer exists because it was never kept by the enemy. In any case, the Convention never visualised the present situation.

The Western Allies are being compelled to feed a multitude equivalent to the male population of a fair-sized country.

And all the time the world food situation is getting more serious. The public here have not been told how grave the deficiency is likely to be.

In Germany, France, Russia, Hungary, the Balkans, Holland, Denmark and Norway, the harvest and fishing of 1945 are certain to be very much below normal because of labour shortages and the devastation of war.

The people of every country will be in need of every pound of food that can be produced or saved. Where is the sense in making unnecessary inroads into our reserves in order to keep German prisoners on a luxury standard?

Their rations should be reduced to our own level at once. And they should be made to work for them. At least 50,000 more should be sent to the land. Others should be organised in gangs and put to navvy work.

It is an affront to humanity that they should be allowed to eat the bread of idleness while millions of their victims live upon a mess of dried herbs.