Recent Changes in German Rural Life.

This article focuses on recent changes in the government policies on agricultural and rural life in Germany. The National Socialist Government has undertaken an administrative policy which will surpass all the previous changes that took place in German farm life during the past four years. Certain functions have been assigned to German agriculture, which the farmers are henceforth to regard as their responsibility and obligation to perform. Their first task is to supply food. Second, it is the function of the farmers to bring up large and healthy families, because from the farm families come the healthiest soldiers and citizens. There are also secondary or indirect functions. A large farm population is expected to fill the gap that the consumers left by resulting in drop in foreign-trade opportunity. The peasant life, also, is regarded as the stronghold of German moral and cultural life. Finally, a thickly settled farm population along the national frontiers is regarded as the most effective bulwark possible against an invasion from other ethnic groups. In return for and in order to permit the farmers to achieve satisfactory fulfillment of their responsibilities the National Socialist government has decreed that they should receive security of prices and land tenure, also the social prestige which should be accorded such an important segment of the national community in the Third Reich.