Potentially Stupid Science/Engineering Question

[MIflyer]

But, he did mention that after around mid-1943 they had problems getting any kind of luxury goods

The Third Reich did not fully mobilize and cease producing luxury goods until they realized it was not going to be a quick war, and that was in 1942.

And note that the RAF strategy of dehousing Germans by laying waste to their cities so that the people would rise up and demand their leaders end the war did not work, at all. The Germans were always more afraid of their own government than they were Allied bombs.

 

[pbehn]

The Third Reich did not fully mobilize and cease producing luxury goods until they realized it was not going to be a quick war, and that was in 1942.

And note that the RAF strategy of dehousing Germans by laying waste to their cities so that the people would rise up and demand their leaders end the war did not work, at all. The Germans were always more afraid of their own government than they were Allied bombs.

For both issues what could the German people do. Allied strategy was based on an opponent in a hopeless situation would give up, it proved necessary to go into Hitlers lair to get rid of him, taking warfare back to the middle ages (or Napoleon) of capturing the opponents leader to end things. There were dozens of attempts to assassinate Hitler, it didnt work.

 

[Shortround6]

European farmers had hundreds of years to figure out how to at least hide starvation avoidance food from whatever authorities there were.
Non-farmers were in a world of trouble.

 

[pbehn]

European farmers had hundreds of years to figure out how to at least hide starvation avoidance food from whatever authorities there were.
Non-farmers were in a world of trouble.

The UK was never in the situation that mainland Europe was in during the war, but even with WW2 rationing in UK the two evacuees my grandmother got from London ate better in the Yorkshire countryside at war than they did in London at pre war peace. Not only easier to hide food its easier to find it

 

[MIflyer]

European farmers had hundreds of years to figure out how to at least hide starvation avoidance food from whatever authorities there were.

I understand that was one advantage of potatoes. They were underground and thus were both less obvious and less vulnerable to being trampled by horses. Unfortunately the French people refused to accept them for many years.

 

[ThomasP]

re

. . . Unfortunately the French people refused to accept them for many years.

Hey MIflyer,

Can you expand on this? I am not that familiar with agriculture history in France. I know that they grow primarily grains but that is the extent of my knowledge re France.

 

[yulzari]

re

Hey MIflyer,

Can you expand on this? I am not that familiar with agriculture history in France. I know that they grow primarily grains but that is the extent of my knowledge re France.

Trivia but in my old village during the occupation by the Germans they grew a lot of parsnips which the Germans would not touch. Regarding them as animal food and not worth the transport. However they did find the transport to take away the White Russians who had fled Paris for the, then, occupied zone once they took over the rest of France in 1942. They also took away the horses and all the leather the tanneries made so the peasants returned to oxen and rope tackle.

One trick the peasants found was to cut back the leaves when the parsnips were grown, feed that to the animals, especially rabbits, and harrow the fields over the in situ crop to hide the roots and the parsnips stayed safe all winter being dug up when needed.

 

[MIflyer]

Can you expand on this? I am not that familiar with agriculture history in France. I know that they grow primarily grains but that is the extent of my knowledge re France.

No, I can't. There was a History Channel program many years ago which said that French leaders tried to get the people interested in potatoes as a staple, but for some reason they regarded spuds as "the Devil's fruit." I guess they got over that at some point, maybe after the invention of the deep fryer?

 

[AMCKen]

One thing I wished I could have seen. Recall that old 50's movie, "Tarantualla" about the scientist (Leo G. Carrol) that causes a spider to grow to the size of a football stadium. The townspeople try to stop it with gunfire and explosives, to no avail. So the sheriff says he is going to call Sands Air Force Base and get some air support.

Can you imagine that phone call? I'd have loved to see Bob Newhart do one of his telephone skits about that. We used to joke about what would occur when we had Ops Duty Officer Duty at Tinker AFB on the weekends and the sheriff in Okmulgee or Okemha called in asking for help with a giant spider or ants the size of Greyhound buses, or something like that. Think we could have scrambled the F-105's of the 507th or some A-7D's or B-52's from the ALC?

But in the movie F-80s, F-84's, and F-86's show up - led by Clint Eastwood - and nape the spider in the nick of time. That was the most incredible aspect of the whole movie.

"I knew Leo G. Carroll was over a barrel when Tarantula took to the hills."

 

[GregP]

Non-Nazis were not starved. Even the Jews working in the tunnels building V-2s and Me-262s were fed. It's sort of a thing you have to do in order to keep people alive and your economy therefore working.

Nazi party membership by 1945 was only just over 8 million in a country of 70 million German citizens. How did the other 62 million stay alive?

I'm not buying this at all.

The Jews working in the tunnels were fed, but not enough. Each one had a potential "use by" date, and was fed enough to work, but also to lose weight. The "use by" date was when they expected them to not be able to work, and so were then executed.

According to at least 5 people I knew who were there when it was happening in Nazi Germany, you are incorrect.

However, it's true, I wasn't there. Perhaps they all lied, even though they told me that stuff independently, not knowing anyone else had ever said a word about it.

I'll believe the eye-witnesses, but also won't make much of a fuss about it.

Modern history texts gloss over WWII anyway, and are afraid to upset certain groups of people with truth. Makes you want to scream. I collect old history books, among other things, and the texts written just after the US Civil War having almost nothing to do with what you read in a modern textbook, if there IS a modern textbook instead of a Wiki article, that is.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

According to at least 5 people I knew who were there when it was happening in Nazi Germany, you are incorrect.

According to the fact that there was no famine in Germany that killed many millions of non-Nazi citizens, I'm right.

I trust evidence, not anecdotes. You should too. Non-Nazis could buy food. Non-Nazis were allowed into all branches of the military except the Waffen SS.

 

[swampyankee]

The Jews working in the tunnels were fed, but not enough. Each one had a potential "use by" date, and was fed enough to work, but also to lose weight. The "use by" date was when they expected them to not be able to work, and so were then executed.

According to at least 5 people I knew who were there when it was happening in Nazi Germany, you are incorrect.

However, it's true, I wasn't there. Perhaps they all lied, even though they told me that stuff independently, not knowing anyone else had ever said a word about it.

I'll believe the eye-witnesses, but also won't make much of a fuss about it.

Modern history texts gloss over WWII anyway, and are afraid to upset certain groups of people with truth. Makes you want to scream. I collect old history books, among other things, and the texts written just after the US Civil War having almost nothing to do with what you read in a modern textbook, if there IS a modern textbook instead of a Wiki article, that is.

A lot of the US history textbooks have bought into the "Lost Cause" lie. Finally, some progress has been made to correct that.

 

[MIflyer]

Modern history texts gloss over WWII anyway, and are afraid to upset certain groups of people with truth.

After 9/11/01 they interviewed a little girl in the USA who said that fanatical religion could be a problem as shown by WW2 being caused by people wanting to be Jewish. She did not get that from school but did not get the truth from school, either.

A friend of mine, in the Polish Army, was a POW, escaped not long before the war ended, and linked up with the Americans to serve as a guide and interpreter, since he spoke Polish, English, Russians, German and some French. They encountered Soviet troops, driving American Jeeps, and he asked one how he liked that American vehicle. The Russian replied it was a Soviet made vehicle and that the reason the marking were all in English was because the USSR shipped them to the USA, and since Americans were dumber than Soviets they needed those markings. Then around 1993 there was a letter in Fine Scale Modeler from a teenager in Ukraine saying he would like to trade models of Soviet WW2 equipment for models of American WW2 equipment, adding that such equipment was remembered fondly in his county. So the Soviet soldier in 1945 was spouting nonsense but the teenager 50 years later knew the truth.

 

[special ed]

Back in my working days, I used to go to several second hand stores, which were better than goodwill. For 2 or 3 dollars one could buy the encyclopedia year books. The info for the years (1940s thru 60s) were very informative. The old ways, before the internet and wiki, were much different from what my daughter's textbooks said.

 

[GregP]

According to the fact that there was no famine in Germany that killed many millions of non-Nazi citizens, I'm right.

I trust evidence, not anecdotes. You should too. Non-Nazis could buy food. Non-Nazis were allowed into all branches of the military except the Waffen SS.

Germany was 80 - 83% self-sufficient in agriculture in 1939. The war most certainly DID affect that, and people were chronically undernourished in German from about 1941. Don't know where you are getting your information, but actual history texts strongly disagree with you as well as people who were there.

I'll say you are firmly in the wrong here.

Don't try to rewrite history. Instead, research it and learn about how it was. It wasn't pretty, and denying reality doesn't help people get a valid look at the conditions of the time. We weren't doing so well in the U.S.A, either, at the time. WWII managed to get us out of the Great Depression of 1929 that was still influencing the U.S.A. when the war hit.

In fact, however, the subject isn't worth the text to argue about it. If you believe what you say above, you are part of how we are losing the history of WWII. If you don't, you are just fishing and I won't bite anymore. I'll listen to what you claim going forward out of curiosity, but we have no real reason to disagree. It was over 89 years ago and the facts are in evidence if anyone cares to go find out without using Wiki or some other online supposed references that are, in fact sometimes, opinions or stories without a shred of research to back them up in many cases.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

Germany was 80 - 83% self-sufficient in agriculture in 1939. The war most certainly DID affect that, and people were chronically undernourished in German from about 1941. Don't know where you are getting your information, but actual history texts strongly disagree with you as well as people who were there.

I'll say you are firmly in the wrong here.

Don't try to rewrite history. Instead, research it and learn about how it was. It wasn't pretty, and denying reality doesn't help people get a valid look at the conditions of the time. We weren't doing so well in the U.S.A, either, at the time. WWII managed to get us out of the Great Depression of 1929 that was still influencing the U.S.A. when the war hit.

In fact, however, the subject isn't worth the text to argue about it. If you believe what you say above, you are part of how we are losing the history of WWII. If you don't, you are just fishing and I won't bite anymore. I'll listen to what you claim going forward out of curiosity, but we have no real reason to disagree. It was over 89 years ago and the facts are in evidence if anyone cares to go find out without using Wiki or some other online supposed references that are, in fact sometimes, opinions or stories without a shred of research to back them up in many cases.

Greg, you wrote that non-Nazis couldn't get food. That is factually wrong. You may admit you wrote incorrectly, you may admit you don't understand simple facts on the ground, you may admit you don't understand what those five folks told you. but you cannot credibly argue that non-Nazis couldn't get food.

It's a horseshit argument and you know it. Practice intellectual honesty, brotha. 90 per cent of all Germans and Austrians in the Reich were not registered Nazis, yet they not only tilled farms, they manned factories, sailed U-boats, worked AA guns, built tanks, and so on.

I don't need to dig into Wiki. I'll pull Shirer off my shelf, amongst other historians.

 

[ThomasP]

The Germans initiated food rationing sometime in 1941. However, the system was not such that the average German received less than the nutrition required - it was instead set up to make sure that food hoarding and profiteering did not occur. While some foods became scarcer, primarily meat and dairy products, there was no no starvation until after the Allies successfully destroyed the distribution systems in an area that was remote from the food production (in general this began in late-1944), in which case there were pockets where enough food became hard to come by. There was no significant amount of food shortage in Germany until after the destruction of the production and distribution systems were impacted.

Having said that, after the Allies occupied a German territory they did not always ensure that sufficient food was available in said areas. This was an intentional act on the part of the Allies, in spite of Article 43 of the 1907 Hague Rules of Land Warfare. Note that Article 43 requires an occupier of another country to ensure that the population of said occupied country receive adequate nourishment to a minimum standard (2000 calories a day at the time of WWII).

By the end of 1944, the US and British officials being trained for the coming occupation of Germany were told they were to ensure that after the war the average German [national] adult "will receive 1500 calories as a maximum although there is no assurance that he will get that much; that is all he can have during our occupation."

In December 1944, Lt.Gen. John Lee gave a Disarmament School lecture to various parties to be involved in the occupation, in which he instructed:

"As for supplying the Germans with food, it will only be as a last resort. We are going to treat Germany as a defeated country. We have to make them realize they are defeated and they are not a liberated country. We expect to put out food to the German people only when there is no other food available... The food problem will probably cause more trouble from a public safety angle than any other one. But we have to be strict with them and we have to watch the food now because later we will have to feed them if supplies become exhausted. We do not want circumstances to force us to import food for Germans."

From an order issued 10 May 1945 by Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of SHAEF forces in occupied Germany:

"You will estimate requirements of supplies necessary to prevent starvation or widespread disease or such civil unrest as would endanger the occupying forces. Such estimates will be based upon a program whereby the Germans are made responsible for providing for themselves, out of their own work and resources. You will take all practicable economic and police measures to assure that German resources are fully utilized and consumption held to the minimum in order that imports may be strictly limited and that surpluses may be made available for the occupying forces and displaced persons and United Nations prisoners of war, and for reparation. You will take no action that would tend to support basic living standards in Germany on a higher level than that existing in any one of the neighboring United Nations and you will take appropriate measures to ensure that basic living standards of the German people are not higher than those existing in any one of the neighboring United Nations when such measures will contribute to raising the standards of any such nation."

An immediate post-war statement by Lucius Clay, U.S. Deputy Military Governor, Germany:

"I feel that the Germans should suffer from hunger and from cold as I believe such suffering is necessary to make them realize the consequences of a war which they caused" though he also warned that "this type of suffering should not extend to the point where it results in mass starvation and sickness."

Pre-war the average German consumed 2900 calories per day. In the immediate post-war period the caloric intake, set by the occupying forces, was to be an average of 1550 calories per day. Actual caloric intake of a German national in the summer of 1945 was an average of around 1250 calories per day in the zones occupied by the US and Britain, slightly worse in the French zone, and slightly better in the Soviet occupied zone. Note that this applied only to German nationals, the refugees from the surrounding countries that were in the western refugee camps or otherwise quartered were receiving around 2300 calories per day.

Also, it should be noted that (despite later US propaganda and popular myth to the contrary) the Allies had no intention of initiating the Marshal Plan in regards to Germany.

During the second half of 1945 and into 1946 objections to the living conditions of the German populace were raised by other countries and organizations within the Allied/United Nations. However, the US occupying forces actively prevented the UNRRA (United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration) and Catholic Church relief agencies from helping German nationals in the occupied zones.

It should be noted here that during this period heating oil was not allowed to the average German national, regardless of whether they were the owners/managers of office/apartment buildings or of individual homes, nor was there any routine transportation available. The German nationals lived without heat or any ability to go any where except by walking, or perhaps by ox-drawn wagon or the occasional mule or horse if you lived in rural/farming areas. Infant mortality rose to 65% during the winter of 1945-46. Death from a combination of malnutrition, exposure, and disease was not uncommon - and as far as I can tell there was not real attempt by the occupiers to track the number of deaths due to these circumstances.

To reiterate, the only significant amount of malnutrition in Germany occurred during the very end stage of the war (say the last 6 months or so) and post-war under the Allied occupation. Possibly this is what the people Greg spoke to are remembering. If they were young at the time their memories while young are the most likely explanation.

It was only the beginning of the Cold War that caused the Western Allies to reconsider and begin the attempt to rebuild Germany.

 

[Geoffrey Sinclair]

The area of Poland designated the Ostgau in 1939 could just generate a small surplus, about enough to feed 650,000 people at a time Germany controlled 112 million people. The rest of occupied Poland could feed itself. Germany at the time was 83% self sufficient in food. Greater Germany 98%. Getting rid of Nazi defined undesirables helped the food situation a little, as did putting those in the ghettos on reduced rations. Imports from and via the USSR helped in 1940/1941 as did imports via the French Mediterranean ports in 1941/42.

The US Army Medical Histories contain quite a bit of aviation, patient evacuations and the need to shift short life items like blood products. The following is from them and other mostly US Army supply histories.

On the 19th and 20th November 1944 Metz is captured. The 3rd Army calls for 1,900 tons of civil relief for the population and receives 56 tons, only by using around 800 tons of captured food is the situation relieved.

Entering Germany in March 1945 the allies found the Germans were the best fed people encountered, the countryside was well off, the cities were about to starve though.

During March US Army men in sedentary jobs will be ordered to take 10% cut in rations because of the food situation. Articles appear in the French press about the food situation including a claim the allies are taking the food. The actual balance is 280,000 tons in aid versus purchase of 70,000 tons

From the Medical history talking about the advance into Germany, "The true test of the system came rather in the care of non combatants of every type, and it was here that Army medics found their most poignant experiences, their worst failures, and some of their finest hours during the memorable spring of 1945." Medical supplies were given, in order, Allies, Europeans, Germans. Also, "Improvisation became the rule in Germany and resulted in the creation of the PoW transient enclosures – institutions that did no credit to the humanity or the competence of the victor". The camps had poor sanitary conditions and even water shortages despite the Rhine being nearby. Also about Displaced Persons, "mingling hunger, exultation and vengefulness that made them a danger to their one time rulers and a burden to their liberators." Farm workers were the best fed but Displaced Persons in good condition were rare.

In April 1945 there was only a 10 day supply of food in the major German cities, Dusseldorf and Essen reported starving children, food stocks had been looted. However even in the middle of the year food stocks in small cities and towns were good.

April/May 1945. The Rhine is set up as a Typhus barrier, you were dusted with DDT if you moved west across the river. Where typhus breaks out in Germany the Displaced Persons have some immunity, being already exposed to it in the German camp system, they had a 3% death rate, the Germans a 35% rate. Diseases rarely do race or credit checks when infecting someone.

After the end of hostilities the US Army cuts rations to all men by 10% because of the food situation

Most PoWs are suffering dietary deficiencies before capture, the German army diet had been deficient in riboflavin and nicotinic acid, when it was available.

During 1944 the prisoner take had largely been handled but the practice of stripping the prisoners of mess equipment, spare clothing, tents and so forth was established, to cut down on transport requirements. This would create many problems in 1945. As with allied PoWs in Germany, the later you were captured the more you tended to suffer.

German camps for allied PoWs are described as acceptable to indescribable, most PoWs need medical help, many had been on forced marches to stay ahead of allied armies, one experience was 600 miles in 87 days sleeping in fields and barns. Rations for allied PoWs had been declining steadily from the third quarter of 1944, post Ardennes US PoWs little better off than Russian prisoners. The first 12,000 PoWs evacuated to Rouen some 18% needed hospitalisation. Apart from camps the allies find PoWs on the road, of some 14,000 found on an airfield in Austria some 10% would die.

The peak of people being directly supported by the US Army in May, is some 7,629,000 people including 2,835,000 PoWs. However these official figures are probably underestimates thanks to the chaotic situations.

General Bradley is quoted as saying on 1 May 1945, in response to an offer by 11th Panzer Division to surrender, that it was acceptable "but only if you bring your own kitchens and can take care of yourselves."

In the investigation of German military programs the allies discover no major biological weapons programs but found the nerve gasses, which the allies thought the Japanese had been told about.

In the April/May/June period the British VIII corps found many miniature Belsens, large numbers of uncontrollable but usually well fed Displaced Persons.

In the first months of occupation some 65% of newborns in Berlin die of disease, the ration is around 800 calories a day, 150 out of 240 hospitals are in service in July but there is a lack of supplies. Across Germany VD has surged, rape has become common, women not needing to be threatened or hurt to gain compliance, an armed man in the uniform of the occupier entering the house is enough.

At the end of August the US Army is still feeding around 1,500,000 displaced persons. Also "60% of the Germans lived on a diet that would inevitably lead to diseases caused by malnutrition." Normal consumers were receiving 800 to 1,150 calories a day. It turned out 1945 was a mild enough year to get just enough food, the official ration was 1,550 calories a day. Then at the end of the year large numbers of refugees began moving into western Germany.

The Green Project, air transport across the Atlantic lifted 166,000 troops from Europe to America between VE day and 10th September. The White Project used spaces in returning aircraft to lift around 85,000 Men across the Atlantic.

On 28th October Penicillin is made available to German civilians, the Germans had known about it pre war but had not developed it.

Some US troops spent the winter of 1945/46 under canvas but most were in permanent accommodation.

Rest mostly from non US Army histories.

At the end of 1945 large numbers of refugees began moving into western Germany

People did starve to death in post war Japan, see the newspaper articles. It should be noted the Japanese military tried to credit finance WWII and one of the government's last acts was to pay the big industrial firms for all outstanding orders, even though none of them would be delivered, increasing the number of notes in circulation from around 5 billion yen in 1941 to around 60 billion yen at the end of 1945. This must be taken into account when you note the increase in food prices, from the end of price controls in 1945 to the end of 1947, rice 500 to 20,944 yen, Barley 33 to 1,260 yen, wheat flour 40 to 1,315 yen, Mackerel 75 to 680 yen, food was in short supply in Japan. In the period mid 1946 to mid 1947 the US shipped some 800,000 tons of food aid to Japan.

In March 1946 German food stocks were at 60 days, rations were cut to 1,180 calories a day and by May and June Army foods were being used. The final crisis would be in the second quarter of 1947. Germany's wheat imports in the 1946/47 period were 4 times that of pre war, in 1947/48 over 6 times pre war levels.

When counting refugee flow note Germany's borders changed significantly after WWII so people coming from places like pre war East Prussia are counted as refugees or immigrants to "Germany" as defined in 1945 and 1946. Germany picked up maybe 8 million refugees from Poland, using the post war borders, most of these refugees were living in Germany pre war, they had not moved, the border had. The civilian death tolls per thousand people for east and west Germany, the eastern figures are from the East German 1955 yearbook.

Year / West / East
1946 / 12.3 / 22.9
1947 / 11.6 / 19.0
1948 / 10.3 / 15.2
1949 / 10.2 / 13.4
1950 / 10.3 / 11.7

In numerical terms this meant the West German death toll was around 550,000 in 1945 including military deaths, and it declined to 479,373 in 1948 before beginning to rise. See the book Eisenhower and the PoWs.

The population of France sank by over 1 million people between 1936 and 1946, to 40.5 million, the average 14 year old in 1945 was 7 to 9 kg lighter and 7 to 11 cm shorter than their 1935 counterparts. Vichy had done the usual axis economic management, printed money, there was 5 times the money in circulation in 1944 than in 1939, 27% inflation in 1944, 63% in 1945.

There was a severe 1944/45 winter and disastrous frosts, French 1945 grain production was 50% of pre war, down 1/3 on even 1944 the 1946 harvests produced a "precarious balance". The winter of 1946/7 produced record low temperatures in Europe, and lingered until April and was followed by widespread drought. Shortages of bread and refined sugar lead to riots in Verdun and Le Mans in September 1947. The US population started purchasing food parcels to send to Europe. The bad 1946/7 winter reduced the French rail system to a worse state than in wartime.

It took until the near world wide bumper harvests in 1948 to restore the food situation.

From the 1950 Canada Yearbook,

"Wheat - The crop year 1948-49 brought about for the first time in several years a near balance between world what supplies and import requirements. Generally excellent crops were harvested in 1948 with world production of both bread grains and coarse grains reaching considerably higher levels than in 1947. Production also exceeded the 1935-39 average by a considerable margin with improved crops being harvested quite generally in both importing and exporting countries. With this easing of previously existing tight supply situation, governments of some wheat importing countries abolished bread rationing while others lowered the compulsory extraction rate in flour milling and considerably reduced the amounts of coarse grains which were formally mixed with bread grains in the manufacture of flour. These two actions provided larger quantities of milling offals and coarse grains for live-stock feed, and so promoted the expansion of live-stock production. The optimism generated by increased available supplies led to the dissolution of the world allocating agency, the international food council of the Food and Agricultural Organisation."

When it comes to western food distribution in a food short world Germany was last on the list.

EDIT/Addition clipped from original.
In mid 1945 the British cut rations of pork/ham to a wartime low, cheese and cooking fats (restored by the end of 1945) but did not introduce bread rationing until 21 July 1946. Partly to save dollars partly due to US pressure. Wartime rationing improved average nutrition, post war was long term unsustainable in a nutrition sense. Pre war the British had an average of around 1.7 million tons of flour and wheat in storage at the end of the year, at the end of 1944 it was just over 2.3 million tons, then just under 1.7 million tons in December 1945 and then fell to 800,000 tons at the end of 1946. The US considered Britain was holding excess stocks when it came to decide wheat allocations.

France: Bread ration tickets were only removed in November 1948, the final items to be rationed (not foodstuffs) only went free in 1949.