Disarmed Enemy Forces - Germany at The End of The War

Germany At The End of The War

German agriculture had suffered extreme productivity decreases in 1944 and 1945. A shortage of synthetic fertilizers had developed after nitrogen and phosphate stocks were channeled into ammunition production. Consequently, crop levels had fallen by 20% to 30% at the end of the war. Allied bombing raids had destroyed thousands of farm buildings, and rendered food processing facilities inoperable. Lack of farm machinery, spare parts, and fertilizer caused an almost total disruption of agriculture when the war was over. After the release of slave laborers that were Russian POWs and Eastern Europeans, extreme agriculture labor shortages existed that could only be relieved by German DEFs and SEPs. Roving bands of displaced persons and returning soldiers and civilians decimated the hog herds and chicken flocks of German farmers.

In addition, the destroyed German transportation infrastructure created additional logistical nightmares, with railroad lines, bridges, canals and terminals left in ruins. The turnaround time for railroad wagons was five times higher than the prewar average. Of the 15,600 German locomotives, 38.6% were no longer operating and 31% were damaged. Only 1,000 of the 13,000 kilometers of track in the British zone were operable. Urban centers often had to be supplied with horse drawn carriages and wheeled carts.

By May 8, 1945, the Allies were swamped with 7 million displaced persons in Germany and 1.6 million in Austria, including slave laborers from all over Europe. Soon thereafter, German populations had swollen by 12 to 14.5 million ethnic Germans expelled from Eastern Europe. Bavarian villages in the American zone faced 15% to 25% population increases from displaced persons, with Munich alone having to deal with 75,000 displaced persons.

The worst dislocation of agriculture was caused by the German zonal partitions, which cut off Western Germany from its "breadbasket" of farm lands east of the Oder-Neisse line that had accounted for 35% of Germany's prewar food production, and which the Yalta Conference had given to Poland to compensate for lands of Eastern Poland. The Soviet Union, with millions of its own starving citizens at home, was not willing to distribute this production to the population in western Germany. In January 1945, the basic German ration was 1,625 calories/day, and that was further reduced to 1,100 calories by the end of the war in the British zone, and remained at that level into the summer, with levels varying from 840 calories/day in the Ruhr to 1,340 calories/day in Hamburg. The situation was no better in the American zones of Germany and Austria.

These problems combined to create severe shortages across Germany. One summary report estimated that just prior to Victory in Europe (V-E) Day, German consumer daily caloric intake was only 1,050, and that after V-E Day it dropped to 860 calories per day, though actual estimates are confusing because of the wide variation by location and because unofficial estimates were usually higher. It was clear by any measure that, by the spring of 1945, the German population was existing on rations that would not sustain life in the long term. A July 1945 CCAC report stated that "the food situation in western Germany is perhaps the most serious problem of the occupation. Average consumption is now about one third below the general accepted subsistence level of 2000 calories per day."

Due to allied restrictions on German trade, neighboring countries were unable to sell food to Germany; this resulted in the Netherlands being forced to destroy a large proportion of their vegetable crop and as late as 1948 Swedish fishermen were still destroying their catch or working only two days a week due to a lack of markets. In August, 1945 the Red Cross shipped 30,000 tons of high protein food parcels by rail to feed displaced persons in Germany but was forced to return them to storage where they eventually spoiled. A further 13.5 million Red Cross rations stockpiled in Europe were confiscated by the military and were never distributed. Senator Kenneth S. Wherry later complained about the thousands upon thousands of tons of rations rotting amid a starving population. Max Huber, head of the International Red Cross, wrote a letter to the U.S. State Department regarding the situation and received a letter in response, signed by Eisenhower, stating that giving Red Cross food to enemy personnel was forbidden. The refusal to distribute the aid has been explained by some modern historians such as Stephen Ambrose, as due to a need to stockpile food in expectation of a famine.

In the spring of 1946 the International Red Cross was finally allowed to provide limited amounts of food aid to prisoners of war in the U.S. occupation zone. By June 1948, DEF rations had been increased to 1990 calories and in December 1949 rationing was effectively discontinued and the food crisis was over.