Food as a Global Commodity and WWII Scarcity

The Human Fuel: Food as Global Commodity and Local Scarcity

• Food has historically been a weapon in warfare, exemplified during WWII.

• The impact of WWII on food supplies proved as deadly as military action.

• 19.5 million military personnel died, while 20 million died from starvation, malnutrition, and related diseases.

• In August 1940, the British blockaded all goods, including food, from entering occupied continental Europe.

• By the end of 1942, Japan blockaded nationalist China.

• US submarines attacked Japanese shipping, while German U-boats patrolled the Atlantic.

• Civilian food supplies had to compete for limited shipping space along with coal, fuel, military supplies, explosives, and troops.

• Starvation became a targeted extermination method by both Germany and Japan.

• Famine and malnutrition were inflicted on vulnerable populations by Axis and Allied powers.

• Countries with modern agricultural sectors were better than those with peasant-based agrarian economies.

• The developed agricultural sectors had more room to readjust.

• Small-scale farmers were difficult for governments to control, so they reduced production and withdrew into self-sufficiency.

• Wartime inflation undermined the purchasing power of peasants and created famine conditions.

• Agriculture struggled to win the internal competition for resources in combatant countries.

• Military conscription and higher-paid work drained workers from Allied and Axis farms.

• Mechanization was difficult due to declining agricultural machinery production.

• Industrial plants switched to producing tanks and arms, and fuel shortages and lack of spare parts hindered machine use.

• The military demand for oxen and horses led to a shortage of draught animals.

• The fertilizer industry lost to the munitions industry because of limited nitrogen and phosphorous supplies.

• Farmers struggled to increase yields because of the shortage of fertilizer.

• Each nation's food requirements increased as the working day lengthened and more people moved into physically demanding work.

• Rising wages elevated the demand for meat and milk products.

• Securing food supply was a preoccupation of all governments involved in the conflict since military capability, industrial productivity, and civilian morale depended on it.

• Food security played a role in Germany and Japan's aggression during the interwar years.

• Securing a food supply played into the hands of those espousing aggressive, expansionist policies.

• Both countries militarized rather than engaging with an international market to appropriate enough land to secure there food supplies.

• Empire was seen as means of making 'peace with modernity' by transforming those groups which had been destabilized by the process of modernization, into a positive force for progress.

• The desire for a secure food supply powered the force for conflict.

• Post-1918 Germany faced difficulties regarding food supply, where food and fodder made up half of the country's imports.

• Reparations payments left too little to buy the necessary raw materials for industry.

• Prominent agronomists debated the country's course of action to feed workers with their desired white bread, butter, and pork.

• A liberal option would have been to follow Britain's example and downscale Germany's inefficient and indebted agricultural sector and channel the surplus workers into industry where they would produce the manufactured goods which could be exchanged for cheap food imports.

• Conservatives opposed integration into the world economy and preferred agricultural protectionism and food self-sufficiency, or autarky.

• Autarky would allow Germany to withdraw from the international food market.

• Conservative housewives' associations called on women to support the German farmer by serving their families rye bread rather than wheat bread and home-grown apples rather than bananas and oranges.

• Food preferences transformed into a political statement.

• After 1933, agricultural reform may have been a low priority because Nazi leaders focused on preparing for war.

• Farming and food supply issues determined wider Nazi policy.

• Agrarian ideology is crucial to understanding the extraordinary militancy of Hitler's regime.

• Leading National Socialists saw how WWI starvation contributed to national defeat in 1918.

• Germany was vulnerable to communist revolution.

• The regime's attempts to achieve food autarky were only moderately successful.

• Germany relied on large fodder imports for domestic meat production.

• The NSDAP's protectionist agricultural policies caused food prices to rise.

• Expensive and scarce food caused social unrest.

• In 1936, Hitler demanded that food prices be brought under control.

• In 1937, he worried about the amount of food imports the country needed.

• In 1938, he warned that the regime would face a crisis unless the problem of food shortages could be solved.

• In February 1939, he told troop commanders that the food question was the most urgent problem.

• The National Socialist solution was the conquest of Lebensraum.

• In 1928, Hitler's 'Second Book' argued Germany needed its version of the American West.

• In 1932, Heinrich Himmler and Walther Darré planned a large eastern empire with agricultural estates run by SS members and worked by enslaved former inhabitants.

• The Reichsnährstand (Reich Food Corporation) was created to reform agriculture, confirmed that Germany needed another 7-8 million hectares of farmland to achieve food self-sufficiency and maintain the current standard of living.

• Lebensraum would ensure all Germans were fed while Germany was immune to blockade and capable of challenging British and American hegemony.

• Securing the German food supply was a key motive for German aggression toward Poland and the Soviet Union.

• In the winter of 1940, Germany had reached an impasse after the Blitzkrieg in Poland and Western Europe.

• The Sicherheitsdienst and Leonardo Conti argued that the present rations were inadequate to sustain war production.

• Germany was building toward a food crisis.

• Food paranoia developed among the National Socialist leadership.

• In January 1941, Herbert Backe gave a negative annual report on the food situation and suggested a solution.

• Hitler focused on the Soviet Union and assumed it could be captured in 2-3 months before the USA got involved, and that Britain would be isolated and wanting to capitulate.

• Meetings with Göring and Hitler included Backe supplying grounds for an attack.

• The agricultural riches of the east would be the means to solve the current food shortage.

• Food from the fertile areas of Russia and Ukraine would be diverted away from Soviet cities and onto the plates of the Wehrmacht instead.

• The Hunger Plan of May 2, 1941 knew that 'unbelievable hunger' would impact northern Russia since the industrial areas would die out.

• No sympathy would be shown for the starving Soviets since 'the war can only be continued if the entire Wehrmacht is fed from Russia in the third year of the war'.

• As soon as the attack on the Soviet Union began in June 1941 the Plan was implemented.

• Rationing was not introduced into occupied Soviet cities.

• Road blocks were set up around major cities to prevent peasants from taking produce into the markets.

• 1 million died of starvation in the siege of Leningrad and another 200,000 died in the blockades of Kiev and Kharkov.

• The deaths were the result of this deliberate strategy.

• The General Plan for the East transformed the East into a rural empire.

• Mass migration of Germans was expected, who would live in idyllic German towns and villages.

• Euphemisms were used for 'resettlement', 'evacuation' and 'Germanization' of the indigenous population.

• 14 million would remain as slaves, while 70 million would be deported to labor camps further east where most were expected to work themselves to death.

• The regime wished to acquire a taste for mass annihilation in order would be simpler to execute them.

• Hitler compared the fate of the Slavs to that of the 'Red Indians'.

• The full extent of Nazi agrarianism is rarely appreciated because many plans went unrealized.

• Between 1939-1942 hundreds of thousands of Polish farmers (many Jewish) were evicted.

• Some were sent to the Reich as forced labourers, others to concentration camps, and 18,000 to the extermination camps at Majdanek and Auschwitz.

• Only fragments of the General Plan for the East were realized.

• If the Germans had succeeded in defeating the Soviet Union, they would have conducted a far more extensive and terrible genocide in the name of agricultural reform.

• Securing the nation's food supply was incendiary in 1930s Japan, since Japan's ailing agricultural sector could not produce enough food.

• Imports of rice from Taiwan and Korea worsened Japan's agricultural crisis by depressing domestic farming incomes when coupled with the Great Depression.

• The countryside was pushed deep into debt.

• The northern provinces were struck by famine in 1934.

• Industrial unemployment added to the sense of crisis.

• Right-wing groups advocated for greater independence from Western capitalism.

• Two young officers planted a bomb on the Japanese-owned stretch of railway.

• This led to Japan occupying of Manchuria, which the army saw as a rich source of gold, coal, cotton, livestock and soya beans.

• In 1937, the Ministry of Agriculture planned to solve Japan's agrarian crisis with the Settlement of One Million Households.

• Poor tenant farmers were sent to cultivate Manchuria to consolidate farms in Japan.

• The plan did not envisage the wholesale extermination of the indigenous population, but the implementation was brutal.

• An official who organized forcible land purchases trampled underfoot the wishes of farmers and forced them to sell.

• The Chinese twisted the name of the colonial office (kaituoju) and renamed it the ‘office of murders' (kaidaoju).

• Prince Konoe Fumimaro was Prime Minister, with Hirota Koki as his foreign minister.

• Isolationism and aggressive imperialism led to war with the West.

• A skirmish between Japanese and Chinese troops in Wanping escalated occupation of Manchuria into war.

• War placed Japan in opposition to America, Britain and the Netherlands.

• The sensible thing would have been to placate the USA to achieve peace.

• The weakness of the European colonial powers emboldened the Japanese to take over resources.

• Japan could establish its claim as a great power in East Asia.

• On December 7, 1941, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor.

• Japan's leaders knew they were entering a war they could not hope to win.

• Japan commanders were convinced a ‘decisive battle' would bring America to negotiate.

• America was not likely to accept anything less than complete surrender.

• The German and Japanese agricultural empires failed to live up to expectations.

• Ethnic Germans and their Nazi rulers were disappointed in the occupied conditions.

• National Socialists were frustrated about the small amount of food the army extracted.

• More food was needed out of the occupied territories increased due to the fear of a food crisis at home.

• Backe insisted that the Wehrmacht must take more food out of Soviet areas or rations within Germany would have to be reduced.

• The Wehrmacht would not be supplied with grain and meat from German farms.

• Rather than waste precious food resources, it was decided to allow Soviet prisoners to starve to death.

• By February 1942, 60 per cent of the 3.35 million Soviet prisoners were dead.

• The military called for a removal of 'useless eaters' from Soviet civilian food chain.

• In the late summer of 1941, the SS and police began to murder all Soviet Jews.

• It would ease the food situation.

• The annihilation of the Jews in Lithuania alleviated the food-supply problems for Army Group North.

• A systematic massacre of Jews in Kiev improved food and housing conditions.

• 800,000 Soviet Jews had been murdered by the end of 1941.

• The massacre of the Soviet Jews and the death of Soviet prisoners did nothing to alleviate the food crisis that was occurring on the Eastern Front that winter.

• German troops shivered and went hungry as food supplies struggled to reach them through mud, rutted roads and snow.

• The Hunger Plan began to show its flaws, and livestock rearing was expected to die out as feed imports stopped.

• Front-line troops relied on local meat supplies.

• Indiscriminate plunder made matters worse.

• A desolate area known as the Kahlfrass stretched back hundreds of kilometres in which the villages were stripped of food.

• In the Reich, the food supply was a source of anxiety.

• Food shortages became commonplace in German cities over the winter of 1941/42.

• Food began to disappear, and vegetables were rare.

• Industrial workers were losing weight.

• Miners in the Ruhr area were thought to have lost up to 6 kilograms.

• Backe had to break into the grain reserves in order to meet the bread ration.

• Increasing numbers of forced workers were brought in from the east to meet the labour needs of industry.

• Urban population was in a pessimistic mood reminiscent of 1918.

• Backe told Göring that he would be unable to raise the ration in the autumn to help people through the winter.

• Göring demanded that the heads of the occupied territories release their stocks of food with no regard for the consequences for the indigenous population.

• National Socialists viewed occupied Europe as a source of plunder.

• Besides the large quantities of food requisitioned by the occupation governments, Hitler tapped into the surplus food on the black markets.

• In April 1942, Hitler decreed soldiers on leave could bring back food parcels known as Führerpakete.

• Greece was stripped of food, and inflation prevented civilians from accessing food.

• Allied food blockades of occupied Europe were so impactful that an exception was made to allow food aid into Greece.

• 14% of Greeks lost their lives from starvation.

• Demoralizing ration cuts in France and Poles in the General Government were a result of Göring's August demands.

• The fate of the surviving Jews in occupied territories was discussed.

• Increased transports to extermination camps began after the August meeting.

• Erich Koch informed his officials that, 'the food situation in Germany is serious ... The raising of the bread ration is a political necessity.

• The missing amounts of grain must be obtained from the Ukraine', and "The feeding of the civilian population is irrelevant in view of this situation."

• Quarter of a million Ukrainian Jews were shot by the end of October.

• While an intensive food confiscation campaign was implemented in the villages, the blockade of the major cities was tightened.

• Food stocks went on the black market, but killing the Jews didn't change that.

• Exceptional harvest allowed General Government to supply to Germany more than half the rye, oats and potatoes and more than a quarter of the barley which was eaten in Germany that year.

• Food extracted from the Soviet Union increased to 8.78 million tons from 3.5 million tons.

• Most was used by the Wehrmacht, but transports of food were sent to the Reich from the Ukraine in the autumn of 1942.

• Goebbels announced that Germany was 'digesting' the occupied territories.

• Over 7 million tons of Soviet grain, 17 million cattle, 20 million pigs, 27 million sheep and goats, and more than 100 million domestic fowl disappeared into the stomachs of the German soldiers and administrators.

• The Germans never fed the entire Wehrmacht on eastern plunder.

• The contradictions of the German agricultural policy demanded draconian collections quotas without price incentives.

• The growth of the black market and the Soviet peasants' capacity to hide food stores from the German farm administrators all contributed to frustrate German hopes.

• Backe insisted Ukraine was the Reich's bread basket to justify his underestimation of the economics of agriculture and food supply.

• The modern agricultural sectors of Belgium, Holland and Denmark adapted to wartime pressures.

• Denmark, Holland and France contributed more food to wartime Germany than the occupied Soviet Union.

• Western European agricultural spoils would probably have been far greater if Göring had not enforced requisitioning policies.

• Price incentives are more effective in encouraging farmers to maintain productivity.

• The Danish agricultural authorities suppressed the black market by limiting rationing to butter and meat and incentivizing farmers to produce milk, pork and bacon which were in demand in Germany.

• Denmark exported 200,000 tons of butter to the Reich between 1940 and 1943, in comparison to a paltry 49,000 tons of butter from France because a more lenient occupational strategy made the difference.

• Japan's empire disappointed when it came to securing the nation's food supply.

• By mid-1942 the Japanese were the masters of Southeast Asia.

• This should have been the answer to Japan's rice shortage problems because Asia, which had produced 67 per cent of the rice entering pre-war world trade.

• Chaotic mismanagement and the massacre of Malayan Chinese in February and March 1942 caused the Southeast Asian rice industry to disintegrate.

• The Kempeitai instigated uncontrolled a killing spree, which reinforced the collapse of the region's commercial networks.

• Cut off zones led to a loss of labor to Japanese war-related projects, the breakdown of irrigation works and rice mills, and the disarray of the transport system.

• The Japanese introduced a catastrophic policy of 'regional autarky', banning the movement of commodities (including rice) across national and regional borders from mid-1943.

• Despite a vigorously promoted ‘Grow More Food Campaign' the region suffered from severe food shortages because the peasants reduced their cultivation to subsistence levels.

• Singapore had to live on tapioca, and tropical ulcers, malaria and beri-beri afflicted Malaysians.

• Thousand suffered from tuberculosis.

• By 1946 the death rate in Malaya had doubled.

• Upper Burma and Tonkin in now current day Northern Vietnam, were cut off from rice supplies.

• Jute and hemp land was reallocated by the Japanese army in Tonkin.

• Unreasonable government levies to supply the Japanese military were made worse when the army began to go out into the villages to directly requisition rice.

• It's unclear how many died in Burma.

• The Japanese authorities made no attempt to gather accurate figures for the number of deaths in Burma.

• The Vietnamese lost between 1 and 2 million lives.

• March 1945: Japanese had 500,000 tons of rice in the south of Vietnam.

• Rice that was supposed to be shipped to troops and civilians in Japan ended up rotting due to blockade.

• Chinese troops ransacked the area and transported food over the border into China.

• The American blockade devastated the Imperial Army's troops across the Pacific islands.

• Although food played a key role, food was not determinative in outcome of the Pacific War.

• This stood in contrasts to China's poverty.

• The war had pulled American agriculture out of the Depression.

• America's plentiful resources enabled it to continue producing farm machinery and fertilizers.

• The agricultural revolution of the 1930s was accelerated by the war and transformed farming into an industry.

• Consequentially, the USA could meet requirements of it's 11.5 million servicemen while rationing had lower impact on meal structure than across all other countries.

• American forces and civilians could eat substantially more and better food than the Allied forces and the enemies.

• 1943: Americans restricted the flow of food to Japanese troops, byspring the Japanese were forced to call upon their forces became self-sufficient

• The Japanese were told their regiment could complete if its supply line was cut if there was "Self –Supporting status in the present location".

• They also began to starve and in the face of starvation the Japanese troops began to starve despite the perceived fighting spirit (bushido)

• Japanese commanders' faith in bushido was misguided as those who had such a belief starved to death rather than surrender, estimates say 60% of deaths resulting to 1 million+ within the deaths between 1.74M between 1941-1945 were starvation related

• By failing to provision their commanded displayed contempt for the troops while the allies were strengthened due to the effective weapon that was starvation.

• The remaining Japanese soldiers and garrisons were "left to wither on the vine" as they cut out the islands of strategic territory

• 1945 summer: Rail and Conjointly, bombardment created havoc that impacted the islands

• Japan's shores meant Soya and Millet imports from Manchuria were blocked and as a result there was a reduction of the staple diet the food. Food sources got replaced replaced sweet potato and soya bean, that made the diet was close to what allowed a survival

• The Japanese at this time, were not yet dying of those who starvation and defeated because the numbers were still low at such a time.

• Americans were able to consider that the civilians starving were in a state to spark revolution. Instead of such happening and July 1945, the soldiers were arming people with weaponry. It then followed to arm the boys with bamboo in order to begin preparation in event battle on the mainland. The path to choosing between continued bloody blockage of the Japanese territories or invasion, it was opted by president for the bombs.

• It became two bombs that led to the acceptance was enough by the emperor to go against his war-hungry government that led to capitulation on 15 Aughust 1945.

• Britain in 1939 was at much susceptible to blockage, relying to have over ten ships arriving ten ships when in reality were bringing 22 million tons

• During the wartime in the territories under Empire. There were "cross-trades" carrying items like India (tea trade),Madagascar (beef) West Africa (cocoa) along with USA all in sugar

• When the territories Burma came to be used and German U-boats affected shipping lane, there were wide shortages of necessary materials and the International food trade was in disarray. There was a need to be for all countries working in the common interest that would be brought about shipping and food and the countries involved

• Countries Involved: USA, British, Canadian

• Although virtually all domestic parts of England were wheat imports, 1943: pasture farming brought forth production of around half of the territories required of wheat

• Due English agri-works and advancements and allowed territories like the islands that extended from 120 - 160 to which it could feed itself. condensed foods gained importation preference due to farming efforts

• Britain used their trade territories, resulting to food abundance through productive.

• TheUSA supplied items like spam and freeze and condensed dried milk

• America sent tons meat and that led to concern that Britain was getting to meat like America

• When there was the height of the U-Boat attack there was on 9 percent of imports to England but that became surpassed

• When in reality the true issue stood that USA was delaying, there was no more available corn beef due delaying the supply

• Over 1943, the Americans only sent half while during high level domestic food increase production to record

• From Soviet Union the USA began sending food with levels as high as 500,000 per month to provide necessary nutrition

• It was the the military campaign demands in Northern Africa that cause issue when England was sending supplies

• When Americans sent supplies, they were warned to provide no than 2 months or 30 days, there were many who took the claims as suspicious

• Only supply agreements the British agreed with secured British admin in lend-lease when in US a meat ration was agreed to.

• England in order to get food in dominions reformed agricultural parts, Canada switched its production from crop to animals as a form of assistance to English with Bacon as it became their supplier

• New Zealand turned making butter to cheese and back to making butter during the vegetable oil source loss in southeast territories

• Australian territories underwent a transformation, and produced high levels of supplies food for US.

• Australia was able to offer more food in proportion compared to other forces, and also contributed 40% of meat supply due to Argentina.

• West African children and women also picked and selected items for the Weekly Margarine ration.

• Through reduced total pounds of material to be in import, there remained consumption of levels that added to a good 56%.

• During England in the wartime ,the English had a "grey food diet' that consisted of "grey sausages" surrounded in "mackintosh".

• To ensure territories protection in economic inflation.

• Middle East territory: Most were safe from hoarding and financial ruin.

• Mortality did lower.

• A lack of control caused issues even when the territories were ruled

• High level cost took away entitlement, which had a direct impact on the amount paid by lower class

• They then fell for source that allowed villagers resorted to eating seed and berries.

• The English did not handle colonies well, failing stabilize during the wartime.

• There then begun widespread food loss in territory of of Bengal, causing disease and starvation that impacted 1.5 million.

• With all factors and damage from those involved, Leo Amery made statement that there never been worse time in the entire territory history

• Though the efforts were carried out to make the situation better the British refused food. Due campaigning for the cause.

• As it became known during territories when the British was shipping imports there grew 2M supplies of import that allowed the colonies

• It did come to a cost everywhere due to the lack of goods in English possessions, particularly for those stuck on island. The the island of Mauritius experienced near exhausting amounts of possessions by March

• Churchill was adamant about not getting involved, but the military did eventually get involved when they went to Asia.

• The territory that lacked exports such as Soviet and China, had the same issue internally.

• The English and German territories both assumed one part of the fight with the USSR would revolve around adequate food amount but it was the ones that ate the least that made the impact. Even with the allied invasion of France the fighting would stay.

• Casualties to battle was close 80% for Soviet

• Agriculture seemed the weakest part of the territories for soviet. With their agricultural land captured by the Germans, the territory was strained for grains.

• It came the the USSR's possession after agriculture was taken and what made it possible was the possession of peasants.

• High level farming push became too rough a task that pushed output and creation of issues that worsened productivity

• By end of 1842 the territory saw 26 million.

• The support provided lent lease was crucia

• Those who were not with forces found it hard live for example for Irene Rush.

• There as a result an economic collapse.

• Although the fears did not destroy as there was a determination to fight.

• It was China that took major damage and damage to lands that affected the war over people lives. More wrong

• War by end seemed very impactful, and Theodore and Annalee gave thoughts that peasants were more skilled at gardening than high level farming.

• For 1900s the Nationalist Party managed increase economic and control high levels inflation

• When the high level forces of Japan decided to take territory of Yunnan. It led to food and the territories of China being hurt by blockage

• The prices soared the cost came with force til the date the Nationalist Party was overthrown

• The level wages declined

• In that manner food was provided for the people, but in return damage occurred to countryside. It caused a strain high up.

• The amount that had military farmers conscripted numbered in the millions to build bridges and other items of need

• Farming then began to collapse due to this

• Then as farmers fought through issues they had last amount of food taken as stated by White in March 1943

• High level army activity resulted to farming death.

• Despite the name that the high level officials were feeding troops however, said troops died from starvation. The territory side began killing their own people

• It would be through military campaigns of Japan that Nationalist troops understood the behavior

• To ensure good measures, there was a need for all sides forces be trained well and provided with consistent flow.

• Economic and labor and political strength.

• Despite China's power, the Nationalist Power lacked it what was needed that killed millions.

• Deaths totalled an excess of 85% with civilians.

• With such heavy amount impact the United State stated during it's "administration" that food had been the key instrument of war

• The territory and army will be high functional if there can be adequate food