Germany's

; €rman Democratic Re-

Official will head the

i rman team at the
€ames in Tokyo.

i

H den 4 Manfred Ewald, presi-
“aR GDR Sports Federa-
cons he will lead the larg-
N hgent to the games.

il a the Japanese hosts
374. ® larger squad than
4 Strong German team.

Hee in otmans have a_ slight

U4 the combined team —

4 fro Petitors compared with
Dy, the West.

Sut
e the Germans will com-

united team

largest at Olympics

pete in only 18 of the 20 Olym-
pic sports, as will the United
States, Soviet Union and Italy.

Japan will be the sole nation
taking part in every event.

Ecuador has decided at the
last minute not to send a team,
which reduces the number of
countries taking part to 97.

This is still 13 better than the
previous games record at Rome
four years ago.

Our photo shows a member of
the women’s gymnastic team
selected for the Olympics. All
eight members of the team are
from East Germany.

i
a

Pee a

totoes eta
Rye pt flour 1 kg.
7 Sug bread 1 kg.
| “I~free market 1 kg.
FT Por, h rationed
: “Nop—free market 1 kg.
eet, rationed
| fee market 1 kg.
a Sousa rationed
a S€—free market 1 kg.
| Butte, rationed
3 free market 1kg.
| PSy * rationed
a ini (roasted) 1kg
Pb Scco 50 gr.
pai tic light bulb 40 w.
. 0, aie man’s) ;
= Stic coal 50 kg.
Tationed

‘
:
| : free market
d
4
;
|

"Oducy GDR West Germany
Meat Quantity 1955 1962 1961/62
rsh kg. 45.0 53.1 60.1
| 299s kg. 12.2 13.2 12.4
| pute, 116 181 235
| Ng 5; kg 9.5 12.0 8.8
R RS kg 10.4 12.1 9.7
cheese (1962/63)
c9ar kg. 3.0 4.0 4.5
aus kg. 27.4 30.2 30.0
kg. 0.287 1.52 3.26

Standards of living

RETAIL PRICES. OF SELECTED GOODS

ANNUAL PER CAPITA CONSUMPTION

1950

West West
GDR Germany GDR _ Germany
(in marks)
0.60 0.76 0.85 4.74
2.40 0.59 1.32 1.04
0.71 0.42 0.52 0.88
12.00 1,18 1.64 1.23
1.20
31.50 4,25 8.00 7.02
2.50
28.25 3.43 9.80 7.60
2.80
30.00 4,79 6.80 6.33
3,30
36.00 5.53 10.00 7.20
4.20
80.00 29.00 60.00 17.15
5.20 a 3.00 1.25
5.85 1.19 1.00 1.00
640.00 151.00 242.00 181.00
9.20 20D 3.66 4.87
1.70

Today: fifth in Europe

Started from scrap

EST Germany, proud of

its “economic miracle”,

boasts it has become the
second military power in the
“free world” next to the
United States.

East Germany leads the world
in the per capita production of
books.

West Germany has more au-
tomobiles per head of popula-
tion than East Germany. But I
am more impressed with these

figures:

® Out of 100,000 persons in
West Germany, 370 are univer-
sity students—in East Germany,
600.

@ 108 marks per head of po-
pulation are spent in West Ger-
many on education — in East
Germany, 320.

@ The East German state
spends 1,200 marks per year
per head of population on health
— the West German state
spends half that amount.

@ In West Germany - there
were 124 accidents for every
1,000 workers in 1963 — in
East Germany, 46.

Figures tell the story: the
capitalist state is good for the
rich, while the socialist state
is good for the people.

But there are more cars in
West Germany; certain goods
are cheaper and better. Why? Is
it, as West German and other
capitalists claim, that socialism
does not work, that only a com-
petitive society provides incen-
tives which result in goods of
the best quality at the lowest
prices?

The argument is often ex-
pressed this way: “All of Ger-
many, East and West, was de-
stroyed in the war. Because
West Germany had a demo-
cratic, efficient government, it
soon repaired war damage and
became prosperous. East Ger-
many, a dictatorship, has an
inefficient government and is
hated by the people. Because of
this it is beset by economic
difficulties.”

But did East and West Ger-
many face the same situation at
the end of the war? The answer
is no!

The nazis had opened their
front in the west, throwing
divisions to the eastern front.
Towns and-cities in the west,
which surrendered without
fighting, escaped further de-
struction. In the east, retreat-
ing nazi armies followed a
scorched earth policy.

In what was to become the

Soviet zone, industries were
heavily bombed by the Ame-
ricans. Leuna, the chemical

giant in the east was 80 per-
cent destroyed. But the che-
mical giant in the west, I.G.
Farben, was hardly damaged.

War damage lowered the pro-
duction potential of the west
by 10 percent at most. In the
east, 70 percent of machine
building and 80 percent of the
metallurgical industry were de-
stroyed,

At the end of the war East
Germany was left with five ob-
solete blast furnaces. West
Germany still had 120 modern
blast furnaces -in good working
order. ~

“East Germany was cut. off
from its West German supply
base. Its processing industry
had no raw materials. It had no
coal, no heavy engineering in-
dustry. It had to start from
scrap and to create basic indus-
tries out of nothing, despite
boycott and sabotage from the
West.

West Germany, starting with
a better potential and greater
natural wealth, received billions
of dollars worth of goods in
Marshall Plan aid. :

In spite of the odds, East
Germany, with a population of
only 17 million, in a short time
became Europe’s fifth industrial
nation, after the Soviet Union,
West Germany, Britain and
France.

There was no coal: Lignite
(brown coal) would have to do.
This was the first industrial
achievement—expanding lignite
mining on a large scale.

There was no steel. A forest
was. cleared to create Ejisen-
huettenstadt, the giant steel
mill combine and city. Bakers,
tailors, farmhands learned to be-
come expert furnacemen.

People said: ‘They’re going
crazy. We haven’t even got
nails and they talk of. steel
mills.”

= West | German experts said:
To build a blast furnace you
need a minimum of two years.”

It was done in nine months.
In two years four blast fur-
naces had been built. Steel pro-
duction began. The 1955 plan
called for 500,000 tons; but 900,-
000 tons were produced.

Of course a price had to be
paid. People had to work: hard
and to forego many things al-
ready available in West Ger-
many. In West Germany they
were producing goods when in

‘East Germany they had to lay

the foundations for basic indus-
tries.

The West Germans tried to
use their more favorable start-
ing point, better potential and
dollar aid as a political weapon
to choke the young economy of
East Germany. They used these
advantages to lure professionals
and experts to the “golden”
West. The gateway was the
open border.

Today, much remains to be
done to improve the quality and
reduce prices of certain consum-
er goods. West Germany is still
ahead. But improvements in
East Germany proceed rapidly.
It is catching up.

East Germany is in fact al-
ready an “affluent” society. Let
television sets be a measure.
In 1954 there were 2,300 sets.

In 1959, one in 10 households
had TV sets. By the end of 1964,
51 out of a hundred households
will have TV, more than in
West Germany.

An example of the high calibre of industrial know-how and
technique in the GDR is this two-metre universal mirror telescope,
the first of its kind and one of the largest in the world. It is being
produced in the Carl Zeiss works in Jena and will be ready for use

by Oct. 19.

October 9, 1964—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 7