If we continue to maintain our present attitude, it will be the combat soldier who will pay with his blood for this mistake.
Generally there is no famine yet in the cities at present. The reporter was even able to establish in a city like Kharkov, which had been embattled to the finish, that the food situation is better than in the past year. This condition can be traced back to the fact that the urban population, which for the most part has been living in cities of industrial areas for only one or two generations, has relatives in the country by whom it is supplied with food items in exchange for consumer goods.
Nutrition—Nomadic Movement—Utilization of Labor.
He who flies over or rides through the occupied Eastern area today will notice crowds of people moving along the roads; there are hundreds of thousands of them, and according to the estimate of experts, their number often may reach a million. These crowds are on the move, either to look for food, or vice versa, to bring food to the cities in order to sell it.
The exchange of food items/consumer goods, which thereby is reached between city and country, is vital in the cities in view of the food supply which is insufficiently controlled by the German administration. Suggestions to suppress this self-support of the urban population radically are unbearable, because this would result in starvation of the urban population, causing decreased work performance and finally a revolutionary attitude.
Loss of Working Power
On the other hand, however, a tremendous amount of valuable working power is being lost for a certain time to the utilization of labor through the nomadic movement.
The conclusion therefore is: First securing of livelihood for the important war economically urban population and their relatives, and only then suppression of this self-support. But not vice versa.
Because of reasons of the utilization of labor therefore, all preparatory measures must be taken without delay in order to guarantee sufficient supplies for the urban population of the occupied Eastern territory which is important to the war economy.
The Family Problem