The Taste of War: World War II and the Battle for Food

by Lizzie Collingham

  THE OCCUPATION OF WESTERN EUROPE

  The dominant National Socialist attitude towards the countries the Wehrmacht invaded was to treat them as a source of plunder rather than as long-term supply bases. The military policy was that all troops should live off the land, and in every defeated nation the Wehrmacht ruthlessly requisitioned industrial and agricultural goods. In the winter of 1940–41 it became clear that the war was going to last longer than the leadership had hoped, and when the decision was taken to invade the Soviet Union the plan was hatched to use the east as the main source of food for the army, as well as a supplier for civilians in the Reich and possibly even to fill food deficits in western European countries such as Belgium and Norway.51 In the summer of 1942, unable to achieve victory in the east, the National Socialist leadership realized that Germany was engaged in a long war of attrition with the Soviet Union, Britain and the United States – and, to make matters worse, the regime was faced by an internal food crisis. It was then that Göring began to insist that every morsel of food should be squeezed out of all occupied territories and to insist that hunger should be exported outside the Reich.

  Despite the National Socialists’ focus on the east as Germany’s source of sustaining food supplies and their short-term attitude towards the resources of western Europe, the latter actually contributed more food to wartime Germany than the occupied Soviet Union. Denmark and France both exported slightly higher quantities of meat to the Reich (768,000 and 758,000 tons respectively) than was received from the Soviet areas (731,000 tons). Moreover, if the official figures for the amounts of food requisitioned by the occupying forces are counted together with the amounts exported to Germany, then Denmark, Holland and France collectively contributed 21.4 million tons of grain-equivalent, in comparison to the 14.7 million tons provided by the occupied Soviet Union.52 Even though collectivization had modernized Ukrainian agriculture it was not as productive or as efficient as western European agriculture, which was better placed to restructure in order to withstand the disruptions of war. With hindsight, Backe would have done better to turn his attention to exploiting the food resources of western Europe rather than those of the Soviet Union.

  GREEK FAMINE AND BELGIAN RESIlieNCE

  The National Socialist policy of plunder wreaked havoc in countries such as Greece, where agriculture was basic and peasant-based. When the German army arrived in April 1941 the officers of the high command requisitioned all the food they could lay their hands on: oranges, lemons, currants, figs, rice and olive oil. Whereas the British navy had brought in shipments of food for the Greek civilian population throughout the military campaign and even the Italians had distributed pasta and olive oil, the Wehrmacht made no attempt to feed the Greeks. To make matters worse, the German troops were expected to live off the land and many units were not even provided with a mess, eating instead in local restaurants.53 The food situation rapidly deteriorated and in the summer of 1941 Marcel Junod, a Swiss Red Cross delegate in Athens, reported that the streets were filled with ‘walking spectres. Here and there old men, and sometimes young ones, sat on the pavement. Their lips moving as if in prayer but no sound came. They stretched out their hands for alms and let them fall back weakly. Pedestrians passed backwards and forwards before them without paying the least attention. Each one was asking himself when his own turn would come.’54

  Although Greece was a predominantly rural country, the peasantry, especially on the islands, produced mainly cash crops such as olive oil, tobacco and currants. The population was dependent on the annual import of 450,000 tons of American grain for one-third of its food but the British blockade of occupied Europe cut Greece off from all imports.55 The compartmentalization of the country into three zones of occupation under the Germans, the Italians and the Bulgarians prevented food from circulating, and in particular it meant that what little food there was available in the north did not get through to Athens and the south.56 Meanwhile, the escape of the Greek merchant marine before the Germans arrived left the islands more or less cut off from the mainland.57 In a pattern which could be observed in every economy affected by the wartime loss of imports, inflation set in and producers and retailers withdrew their food supplies from the market. They either hoarded them, speculating on further price rises, or sold them on the black market, often to German agents collecting food for the military. The Greek government therefore lost access to what little food supply was left in the country and was unable to protect the poor and the needy from spiralling food prices by giving out food aid.58 The numbers of the poor swelled daily as the Germans requisitioned and dismantled industrial plant for transport to the Reich, leaving thousands unemployed. In Athens the government was only able to provide rations of 458 calories per person, not even half of what most people need to maintain the body’s normal functions. In November this fell to a paltry 183 calories, the equivalent of one or two slices of bread a day. In August people began to drop dead in the streets of Athens.59 By January 1942 the death rate was 2,000 per day and infant mortality had risen to over 50 per cent. Families would leave the bodies of their children in the streets, hoping to continue using their ration cards. One island in the Aegean sarcastically conveyed the message to Athens, ‘send bread or coffins’.60 Meanwhile, the health of German troops in North Africa greatly improved that summer as small ships laden with fresh fruit and vegetables began to sail from Greece to the Libyan port of Bardia.61

  In the summer of 1941 the Red Cross, the United States government and campaigning groups within Britain* all argued that it was imperative that the British government revise their blockade policy and allow food aid to get through to the Greeks. When he had announced the blockade in August 1940 Churchill had been adamant that there was to be no question of food aid. To send in food, even for innocent civilians, would, he argued, simply relieve the Germans of the need to feed the people, and help their war effort. Besides, the Nazis were not to be trusted – the food would most likely be diverted into German stomachs. The former American President Herbert Hoover, who had risen to prominence in public life as a self-appointed organizer of food relief during the First World War, was infuriated by Churchill’s stance. He described him as ‘a militarist of the extreme school who held that incidental starvation of women and children was justified’.62

  Churchill eventually caved in to the pressure to allow relief for Greece through the blockade. The famine was on such a vast scale that it aroused American public opinion against the policy. Further rational argument came from Oliver Lyttelton, Minister of State in Cairo, the headquarters for the North African military campaign. Lyttelton was facing protests from the Greek community in Egypt where the British position was never particularly secure. He telegrammed the British government with the warning: ‘History will I believe pronounce a stern judgement on our policy. I appeal not only to mercy but to expediency … we shall undermine the resistance of an ally and lose a possible centre of successful insurrection against the Axis if we continue to starve the Greeks … I have no doubt where the balance of advantage of winning the war lies.’63 In January 1942 shipments of wheat were allowed through the blockade and from April regular cargoes of wheat and other foodstuffs were shipped into the Greek ports.64 But by then at least 20,000 people had already died of starvation. Even after April the food brought in by the Allies was never enough. Although it halted the large-scale urban famine, the Greeks continued to die of starvation. Reinforcing Churchill’s argument that the Germans were not to be trusted, relief eventually became a tool which the occupying armies used mercilessly against the guerrilla resistance fighters in the mountainous areas. Villagers in those areas where the partisans were active were denied any food aid; instead, their homes and fields were burned to the ground in an attempt to clear the area and deprive the resistance fighters of their support network. In 1943 and 1944 much of the Greek countryside starved. By the time Greece was liberated in 1944, half a million Greeks, 14 per cent of the population, had died from hunger and associated d
iseases.65 This was a civilian casualty rate eight times higher than that suffered by Britain.

  Food aid for Greece was the only significant exception Churchill was willing to make and the blockade against the rest of occupied Europe was enforced throughout the rest of the war. Campaigners from the relief organizations continued to plead for aid to be allowed through, arguing that if Britain stood by while Germany used starvation as a weapon of war it would call into question the humanitarian rhetoric that Churchill himself used so liberally.66 But it was Churchill’s fixed idea that no quarter could be given in the fight against Germany. Perhaps, if the defence of the strategy had been tempered by greater acknowledgement of the suffering it caused, it would not have created such a large question mark over the reputation which the Allies claimed for themselves as representatives of the forces of ‘Good’ over ‘Evil’.67

  In theory Belgium was in a similar position to Greece. It depended on annual imports of 1.2 million tons of grain from overseas, which came to a sudden halt with German occupation. As the Wehrmacht moved in the quartermasters, field units and individual soldiers scrambled to buy or requisition as much food as possible.68 However, after an extremely difficult winter in 1940–41, farmers rallied and succeeded in producing enough food to provide adequate amounts for almost all the population. The Belgians did not succumb to famine like the Greeks. The usual explanation for this is that Germany was willing to support the country with food imports for the sake of its industrial goods, at least two-thirds of which were exported to the Reich. On the contrary, Belgium did not in fact survive on food sent in from Germany but was left to feed itself. Throughout the four long years of occupation Belgium received only 849,000 tons of grain imports, enough to cover three-quarters of a year’s pre-war consumption.69 A little food was smuggled in across the French and Dutch borders but the reason the Belgian population did not starve was because its agricultural sector proved itself able to adapt to wartime circumstances.70

  The wartime productivity of Belgian agriculture was not the result of the efforts of the Belgian version of the German Reich Food Corporation, which was set up by the occupying forces. Indeed, the Corporation Nationale de l’Alimentation et de l’Agriculture proved incapable of influencing disaffected farmers, and its collection system was only able to muster sufficient food to distribute a daily ration of between 1,000 and 1,500 calories per person. What kept the Belgians alive was the food which the farmers channelled on to the black market. Farmers in large enterprises were able to illegally siphon off only a part of their produce, but farmers with smallholdings probably sold virtually everything they produced on the black market, which eventually developed into an alternative food economy.71 The extent of the black market is indicated by the absurd statistic that the smaller an animal and the easier it was to conceal, the fewer the number of such animals – rabbits, chickens, goats – were recorded in the official figures.72

  Belgian agriculture was much more modern than Greek peasant farming, and the farmers were sufficiently flexible to be able to switch to crops rather than livestock, and increase grain and potato production. The high prices their goods fetched on the black market provided sufficient incentive to produce. In 1943 a kilogram of black market bread cost 49 francs compared to 2.60 on the legal market, a kilogram of meat sold for 190 francs while the official price was 34 francs. This would suggest that if the occupying administration had applied a fair pricing policy it might well have been able to gain much more from Belgium than the paltry 27,200 tons of fruits and vegetables which Belgium exported to the Reich in 1942, falling to only 7,300 tons in 1943.73

  A similar story played itself out in France. The country’s reputation for fine food and wines meant that the German occupying forces were all the more rapacious in their plunder. With the exchange rate absurdly weighted in their favour, German soldiers could afford to supplement their rations with sumptuous meals in restaurants and cafés. On a trip to Paris from Berlin in October 1942 Marie Vassiltchikov, who worked for the German Foreign Ministry, wrote to her mother: ‘life is still most agreeable so long as one can afford it. This does not mean that things are particularly expensive; but to have a decent meal (say, with oysters, wine, cheese and fruit, plus a tip) you must fork out about 100 francs per person; which is, after all, only 5 marks.’74 German officers were served beefsteaks ‘imperfectly concealed under token fried eggs’ and washed down with champagne. The First World War hero turned famous author, Ernst Jünger, a German officer in Paris during the war, recorded in his diary that ‘to eat well and to eat a lot’ while surrounded by the hungry, ragged French, ‘gives a feeling of power’.75 For occupying troops in France the Wehrmacht’s policy of living off the land translated into living off the fat of the land. Even the lowliest of the German occupiers were able to afford luxuries in France. When he was doing his labour service Alois Kleinemas was billeted at the chateau in Cognac. He was able to collect a crate of brandy to take home to celebrate his parents’ wedding anniversary. He also used to post them packets of butter.76 Helmut Radssat recalled that the canteen of the Verneau barracks in Angers was particularly cherished by those soldiers who had come from the eastern front. ‘The precious aroma of wine and brandy was quite new to me. In Germany such luxuries were becoming more and more scarce. It was in those barracks that I learned to know and appreciate good wines.’77

  French agriculture was particularly badly hit by a shortage of labour. Around 50,000 of the 2 million French prisoners of war were agricultural workers who were sent to work on German rather than French farms. Altogether, about 400,000 agricultural workers were missing, leaving women and the aged to run the farms. Shortages of horses, tractors, fuel, fertilizer and pesticides led to a precipitous decline in yields. Worst hit were meat and milk, but even potatoes, sugar beet and wheat showed steep reductions, particularly in the first year of the war, after which yields stabilized.78

  Official food prices rose only modestly but prices on the black market soared. This triggered an inflationary spiral whereby the less the food authorities were able to requisition the more the rations were reduced. In August 1942 Göring responded to internal food shortages within the Reich by calling together the various leaders of the occupied territories and insisting that they deliver more food to Germany. ‘As far as France is concerned’, he pronounced, ‘I am positive that its soil is not cultivated to the maximum … also the French stuff themselves to a shameful extent … Collaboration from the French I see in one way only: let them deliver as much as they can.’79 Given Göring’s own notoriously extravagant eating habits and the behaviour of the German occupiers who were known to wolf down omelettes made with twelve precious eggs, this was the application of the worst possible kind of double standard. Göring demanded from France quantities of wheat, meat and butter which amounted to between 15 to 20 per cent of all available food.80 His secretary, Paul Koerner, noted that Germany’s military commander in France was so horrified by the demands that he initially refused to convey them to the authorities in Paris.81 He feared that it would lead to further ration cuts and food riots. In the long run he concluded that it would simply be counter-productive and would further demotivate the farmers, leading to a long-term fall in production.82 By 1944 the energy value of the French ration had fallen to 1,050 calories and, as in Belgium, the black market or connections to a rural family with food became essential for the survival of anyone living in a town or city. This in turn pushed up prices on the black market, leading to the diversion of more and more food on to the illegal market.

  Germany exported wartime hunger to the countries it occupied. In Belgium and France those who suffered were the people without any or only limited access to the black market. Thus, prisoners in Belgian gaols began to die of starvation in 1942, unable to survive on the 1,550 calories a day that the ration provided and unable to supplement their rations from alternative sources. Urban office workers, clerks, civil servants and the old suffered disproportionately as they lacked the cash or the luxu
ry goods to barter for supplementary food.83 By 1943–44 Belgian and French families were spending 70 per cent of their income on food. Even middle-class Parisians had to make do with a dreary round of soup, a little sausage and the occasional egg with beans.84 Tuberculosis, which is strongly associated with malnutrition, spread among the young and in France deaths from the disease doubled. Malnutrition could be read in the stunted growth of children. In 1944 French girls were 11 centimetres, and boys 7 centimetres, shorter than the height of their counterparts in 1935. By 1943, 80 per cent of urban Belgian children were suffering from rickets, caused by severe vitamin D deficiency in the diet. Parisians betrayed their lack of vitamins in their dull eyes and sallow complexions.85

  ALLIES AND ARYANS

  In theory Italy and Germany were allies but when in October 1940 Mussolini tried to assert Italy’s autonomy by invading Greece without consulting Hitler all he succeeded in doing was relegating Italy to the position of a satellite state of the Reich. Italy’s humiliating inability to defeat the Greeks and the need for Germany to send in its own troops to finish the job discredited Mussolini in the eyes of both the National Socialists and his own people.86 When Mussolini was overthrown in the autumn of 1943 Italy went over to the Allies, triggering German occupation of the country.