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

by Lizzie Collingham

  August–September: famine in Soviet Union.

  September: Stalin reinstates central planning and the state distribution of food. Second FAO conference.

  November: third meeting of FAO when US sabotages plan for World Food Board.

  1947

  April: Marshall Plan accepted by US Congress.

  6 April: Herbert Backe commits suicide.

  1947–48

  Hunger protests in occupied Germany.

  1948

  April: Marshall Plan aid begins to arrive in Europe.

  20 June: German currency reform.

  1949

  1 October: Mao Zedong founds the People’s Republic of China.

  Notes

  1. Introduction: War and Food

  1 Stephens, Monsoon Morning, p. 184.

  2 Furuta, ‘A survey of village conditions’, p. 237.

  3 Adamovich and Granin, A Book of the Blockade, pp. 53, 31.

  4 Ibid., p. 60.

  5 Ellis, The World War II Databook, pp. 253–4. Statistics for the Second World War are unreliable. The figure of 19.5 million military deaths is a lower estimate and it includes many soldiers who died of malnutrition, associated diseases and starvation while fighting. It does not include the many Chinese prisoners of the Japanese and Soviet prisoners in German hands who died of starvation while in captivity. The millions of civilians who died of starvation in Africa and Asia are frequently not included in civilian wartime casualty figures. If they are included then the figure of total deaths caused by the Second World War rises from about 50 to about 70 million.

  6 ‘More wealth, more meat. How China’s rise spells trouble’, Guardian, 30 May 2008; Naylor and Falcon, ‘Our daily bread’, p. 13.

  7 Rosenberger, ‘The strategic importance of the world food supply’, n.p.

  8 Naylor and Falcon, ‘Our daily bread’, p. 13.

  9 Ibid., p. 16.

  10 Ibid., p. 18; Timmer, ‘The threat of global food shortages’, n.p.

  11 Rosenberger, ‘The strategic importance of the world food supply’, n.p.

  12 Food and Agriculture Organization, ‘Assessment of the world food security and nutrition situation’, Committee on World Food Security, Thirty-fourth Session, Rome, 14–17 October 2008. Agenda Item II, http//ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/meeting/014/k3175e.pdf, p. 5.

  13 ‘Bread shortages, hunger and unrest’, Guardian, 27 May 2008.

  14 Overy, Russia’s War, p. 134.

  15 18,000 deaths between 1940 and 1942 are recorded as having been due to starvation but most of the victims of hunger will not have been counted. Roland, Courage, p. 102.

  16 Voglis, ‘Surviving hunger’, p. 25.

  17 Proctor, The Nazi War on Cancer, p. 171; Boog et al., Der Angriff, p. 1019.

  18 Levi, If This Is a Man, pp. 66–7, 79–80.

  19 Simmons and Perlina, Writing the Siege of Leningrad, p. 59.

  20 Magee, ‘Some effects of inanition’, pp. 55–7.

  21 Magaeva, ‘Physiological and psychosomatic prerequisites for survival’, pp. 132–5.

  22 Black, A Cause for Our Times, pp. 7–8; Voglis, ‘Surviving hunger’, pp. 22, 36–7.

  23 Bacon, The Gulag at War, p. 139.

  24 Frank, Downfall, p. 160.

  25 Bix, Hirohito, p. 360.

  26 Offer, The First World War, pp. 23–4.

  27 Kravchenko, I Chose Freedom, p. 388.

  28 Goldberg, ‘Intake and energy requirements’, p. 2096.

  29 Vinen, A History in Fragments, p. 229.

  30 Ellis, The World War II Databook, p. 253; Fujiwara, Uejini shita eireitachi, pp. 135–8.

  31 White and Jacoby, Thunder out of China, pp. 169; Rummel, China’s Bloody Century, p. 118.

  32 Greenough, Prosperity and Misery, p. 140.

  33 Harvard Project on the Soviet Social System, Schedule A, Vol. 15, Case 305, pp. 44–5.

  34 Ibid., pp. 45–6.

  35 Davidson and Eastwood, Human Nutrition, p. 67.

  36 Jean Legas, notes on wartime memories.

  37 Davidson and Eastwood, Human Nutrition, p. 67; Lüdtke, ‘Hunger, Essens-“Genuß” und Politik’, pp. 122–3.

  38 Davidson and Eastwood, Human Nutrition, p. 68.

  39 Offer, The First World War, pp. 51–2.

  40 Dörr, “Wer die Zeit nicht miterlebt hat …”, II, p. 27.

  41 Rama and Narasimham, ‘The root crop and its uses’, p. 4663.

  42 Grover, Incidents in the Life of a B-25 Pilot, n.p.

  43 Ibid.; Potts and Potts, Yanks, p. 88; Wettlin, Russian Road, p. 87.

  PART I FOOD – AN ENGINE OF WAR

  2. Germany’s Quest for Empire

  1 Kay, Exploitation, p. 80.

  2 Eden, The State of the Poor, pp. 264–5; see also Davies, The Case of Labourers in Husbandry; Teuteberg, Der Wandel der Nahrungsgewohnheiten, pp. 66–7.

  3 Ibid., p. 65; Davis, Home Fires Burning, p. 69. Modern Europeans now eat about 77 kilograms of meat per capita per year.

  4 Turner, About Myself, pp. 45–7; see also Standish, A Life Apart, p. 78.

  5 Trentmann, ‘Coping with shortage’, p. 15.

  6 Tooze, The Wages of Destruction, p. 191; Belcham, Industrialization and the Working Class, pp. 207–9.

  7 Offer, The First World War, pp. 3, 39–40, 168.

  8 Belcham, Industrialization and the Working Class, p. 208; Offer, The First World War, pp. 100–101.

  9 Teuteberg, Der Wandel der Nahrungsgewohnheiten, pp. 68, 131; Belcham, Industrialization and the Working Class, p. 208; Standish, A Life Apart, p. 81.

  10 Trentmann, ‘Coping with shortage’, pp. 17–18.

  11 Offer, The First World War, pp. 85–6.

  12 Ibid., pp. 86, 90.

  13 Trentmann, ‘Coping with shortage’, pp. 19–20.

  14 Tracy, Government and Agriculture, p. 30.

  15 Trentmann, ‘Coping with shortage’, p. 21.

  16 Tracy, Government and Agriculture, pp. 20–21.

  17 Offer, The First World War, pp. 86, 230, 324, 331.

  18 Trentmann, ‘Coping with shortage’, p. 19.

  19 Offer, The First World War, p. 331.

  20 Ibid., p. 321.

  21 Ibid., pp. 333–4; Zilliacus, ‘Economic and social causes of the war’, pp. 28–9; Fischer, World Power, pp. 17–19; Kershaw, Hitler, p. 79.

  22 Offer, The First World War, pp. 270–1.

  23 Davis and Engerman, Naval Blockades, p. 211.

  24 Hernández-Sandoica and Moradiellos, ‘Spain and the Second World War’, p. 253.

  25 Davis and Engerman, Naval Blockades, pp. 159, 173.

  26 Vat, The Atlantic Campaign, p. 34.

  27 Ibid., p. 13.

  28 Offer, The First World War, pp. 366–7.

  29 Davis and Engerman, Naval Blockades, p. 201.

  30 Offer, The First World War, pp. 336–7; Vat, The Atlantic Campaign, p. 30.

  31 Cited by Vincent, The Politics of Hunger, p. 45.

  32 Cited by Offer, The First World War, p. 28.

  33 Ibid.

  34 Vincent, The Politics of Hunger, p. 143; Kershaw, Hitler. 1889–1936, p. 99.

  35 Vincent, The Politics of Hunger, p. 131.

  36 Ibid., p. 50; Howard, ‘The social and political consequences’, pp. 163, 166, 172.

  37 Offer, The First World War, pp. 74–8.

  38 Kershaw, Hitler, pp. 97, 109.

  39 Offer, The First World War, p. 400.

  40 Kutz, ‘Kriegserfahrung und Kriegsvorbereitung’, p. 73.

  41 Corni, Hitler and the Peasants, pp. xv, 5–7; Farquharson, ‘The agrarian policy’, p. 235.

  42 Trentmann, ‘Coping with shortage’, p. 26; Staples, The Birth of Development, p. 72.

  43 Kutz, ‘Kriegserfahrung und Kriegsvorbereitung’, pp. 73–4.

  44 They were linked to the conservative Catholic Centre Party (Zentrum), the right-wing German National People’s Party (Deutschnationale Volkspartei) and the centre-right German People’s Party (Deutsche Volkspartei).

  45 R
eagin, Sweeping the German Nation, pp. 93–9; Spiekermann, ‘Brown bread’, p. 148.

  46 Kutz, ‘Kriegserfahrung und Kriegsvorbereitung’, pp. 73–4.

  47 Ibid., p. 76; Lehman, ‘Agrarpolitik und Landwirtschaft’, p. 29.

  48 Wehler, Deutsche Gesellschaftsgeschichte, pp. 700–702; Lovin, ‘Agricultural reorganization’, p. 457.

  49 Ibid., p. 461.

  50 Farquharson, ‘The agrarian policy’, p. 234.

  51 Huegel, Kriegsernährungswirtschaft Deutschlands, p. 22; Lovin, ‘Blut und Boden’, pp. 282; Corni, Hitler and the Peasants, p. 23.

  52 Bramwell, Blood and Soil, p. 108.

  53 Corni, Hitler and the Peasants, pp. xv–xvi; Farquharson, ‘The agrarian policy’, p. 233.

  54 Huegel, Kriegsernährungswirtschaft Deutschlands, pp. 279–80; Wehler, Deutsche Gesellschaftsgeschichte, p. 705.

  55 Kay, Exploitation, p. 14.

  56 Farquharson, ‘The agrarian policy’, pp. 244–5.

  57 Corni, Hitler and the Peasants, p. 249; Huegel, Kriegsernährungswirtschaft Deutschlands, p. 286.

  58 Müller, ‘Die Mobilisierung der deutschen Wirtschaft’, p. 397.

  59 Tooze, The Wages of Destruction, p. 658.

  60 Ibid., p. 197.

  61 Corni and Gies, Brot, Butter, Kanonen, p. 19.

  62 Schleiermacher, ‘Begleitende Forschung zum “Generalplan Ost”’, p. 339.

  63 Corni, Hitler and the Peasants, pp. 27–8.

  64 Picker, Hitlers Tischgespräche, p. 495. Italics in original.

  65 Mai, “Rasse und Raum”, p. 2.

  66 Young, Japan’s Total Empire, p. 309.

  67 Helstosky, Garlic and Oil, p. 96.

  68 Betts, Uncertain Dimensions, p. 50; Moore, Fourth Shore, p. 13.

  69 Young, Japan’s Total Empire, p. 309.

  70 Laqueur and Breitman, Breaking the Silence, p. 130.

  71 Bramwell, Blood and Soil, pp. 92–3.

  72 Tooze, The Wages of Destruction, p. 180; Bramwell, Blood and Soil, pp. 94–8.

  73 Ibid., pp. 99–100, 110.

  74 Backe, Um die Nahrungsfreiheit Europas, p. 238.

  75 Lehmann, ‘Herbert Backe’, p. 9; Bramwell, Blood and Soil, p. 114.

  76 Huegel, Kriegsernährungswirtschaft Deutschlands, p. 287.

  77 Kay, Exploitation, p. 54.

  78 Keegan, The Second World War, pp. 94–102.

  79 Kay, Exploitation, p. 145.

  80 Ibid., p. 123.

  81 Tooze, The Wages of Destruction, pp. 418–19.

  82 Beaumont, ‘Starving for democracy’, pp. 58, 78–9; Rahn, ‘The war at sea’, p. 330.

  83 Kay, Exploitation, p. 39.

  84 Ibid., p. 42; Gerlach, Krieg, Ernährung, Völkermord, p. 16.

  85 Gerlach, Kalkulierte Morde, p. 48.

  86 Ibid., p. 47.

  87 Ibid., p. 48; Kay, Exploitation, pp. 123–5.

  88 Kay, Exploitation, p. 50.

  89 Ibid., pp. 39–40.

  90 Gerlach, Kalkulierte Morde, p. 48; Overy, Russia’s War, p. 17.

  91 Gerlach, Kalkulierte Morde, p. 46.

  92 Ibid., p. 49.

  93 Moskoff, The Bread of Affliction, p. 42.

  94 Tooze, The Wages of Destruction, p. 180.

  95 Kay, Exploitation, pp. 4, 47.

  96 Ibid., pp. 57, 127. In fact the German Achilles heel was oil: Mazower, Hitler’s Empire, p. 290.

  97 Kay, Exploitation, pp. 180–1.

  98 Gerlach, Kalkulierte Morde, p. 261.

  99 Gerlach, Krieg, Ernährung, Völkermord, pp. 17–19.

  100 Kay, Exploitation, pp. 206–7.

  101 Cited by Gerlach, Kalkulierte Morde, p. 53.

  102 Rössler and Schleiermacher, ‘Der “Generalplan Ost”’, p. 10.

  103 Grönung, ‘Die “Allgemeine Anordnung”’, pp. 133–4.

  104 Wolschke-Bulmahn, ‘Gewalt als Grundlage’, pp. 335–6.

  105 Grönung, ‘Die “Allgemeine Anordnung”’, p. 132.

  106 Wolschke-Bulmahn, ‘Gewalt als Grundlage’, pp. 335–6.

  107 Madajzyk, ‘Vom “Generalplan Ost” zum “Generalsiedlungsplan”’, p.16; Roth, ‘“Generalplan Ost”’, p. 41.

  108 Roth, ‘“Generalplan Ost”’, p. 40.

  109 Tooze, The Wages of Destruction, pp. 467–8, 491.

  110 Roth, ‘“Generalplan Ost”’, pp. 34, 36, 39.

  111 Evans, The Third Reich at War, p. 36.

  112 Gerlach, Krieg, Ernährung, Völkermord, p. 177.

  113 Roth, ‘“Generalplan Ost”’, pp. 33–4.

  114 Klukowski, Diary, p. 88.

  115 Ibid., p. 104.

  116 Ibid.

  117 Ibid.

  118 Ibid.

  119 Tooze, The Wages of Destruction, p. 464; Madajzyk, ‘Vom “Generalplan Ost” zum “Generalsiedlungsplan”’, p. 12.

  120 Wolschke-Bulmahn, ‘Gewalt als Grundlage’, p. 332; Roth, ‘“Generalplan Ost”’, p. 35.

  121 Luczak, ‘Landwirtschaft und Ernährung in Polen’, p. 122.

  122 Wasser, ‘Die “Germanisierung” im Distrikt Lublin’, p. 272.

  123 Klukowski, Diary, p. 227.

  124 Ibid., pp. 274–5.

  125 Harvey, Women and the Nazi East, p. 240.

  126 Klukowski, Diary, pp. 227–9.

  127 Luczak, ‘Landwirtschaft und Ernährung in Polen’, p. 120; Tooze, The Wages of Destruction, p. 464.

  128 Klukowski, Diary, p. 230.

  129 Harvey, Women and the Nazi East, p. 270.

  130 Ibid., p. 266.

  131 Mai, “Rasse und Raum”, pp. 189, 319, 323.

  132 Bosma, ‘Verbindungen zwischen Ost- und Westkolonisation’, pp. 199–200.

  133 Schleiermacher, ‘Begleitende Forschung zum “Generalplan Ost”’, p. 344.

  134 Harvey, Women and the Nazi East, p. 246; Madajzyk, ‘Vom “Generalplan Ost” zum “Generalsiedlungsplan”’, pp. 14–16; Roth, ‘“Generalplan Ost”’, p. 43.

  135 Harvey, Women and the Nazi East, p. 246.

  136 Wasser, ‘Die “Germanisierung” im Distrikt Lublin’, pp. 288–90; Madajzyk, ‘Vom “Generalplan Ost” zum “Generalsiedlungsplan”’, pp. 15–16.

  137 Bramwell, Blood and Soil, p. 127.

  138 Lehmann, ‘Herbert Backe’, p. 10.

  139 Wildt, Generation des Unbedingten, pp. 843–4.

  140 Rössler, ‘Konrad Meyer’, p. 362.

  141 Wolschke-Bulmahn and Gröning, ‘The National Socialist Garden’, p. 93; Heinemann, ‘Wissenschaft und Homogenisierungsplanungen’, p. 70; Wolschke-Bulmahn, ‘Gewalt als Grundlage’, p. 336. Meyer’s publication was entitled Nahrungsraum und Überbevolkerung.

  3. Japan’s Quest for Empire

  1 Shin’ichi, Manchuria, p. 16.

  2 Kershaw, Fateful Choices, p. 92.

  3 Mitter, Modern China, p. 32.

  4 Barnhart, Japan Prepares, p. 18; Martin, Japan and Germany, p. 82; Kershaw, Fateful Choices, pp. 100, 126; Gann, ‘Reflections’, pp. 337, 352.

  5 Iriye, Origins of the Second World War in Asia, pp. 3, 5–6.

  6 Wilson, The Manchurian Crisis, pp. 225–6.

  7 Kershaw, Fateful Choices, pp. 93, 97.

  8 Martin, Japan and Germany, p. 82.

  9 Myers and Saburo, ‘Agricultural development in the Empire’, p. 448.

  10 Ishige, ‘Japan’, p. 1182.

  11 Johnston, Japanese Food Management, pp. 84–5.

  12 Ibid., pp. 75–6.

  13 Ibid., p. 76.

  14 Ibid., pp. 56–7; Myers and Saburo, ‘Agricultural development in the Empire’, pp. 432–3, 440.

  15 Hane, Peasants, Rebels and Outcastes, p. 160; Duus, ‘Introduction. Japan’s wartime empire’, p. xv.

  16 Lewis, Rioters and Citizens, p. 245.

  17 Ibid., p. 246.

  18 Beasley, Japanese Imperialism, p. 149; Duus, ‘Economic dimensions of Meiji imperialism’, p. 159; Johnston, Japanese Food Management, pp. 54–5.

  19 Cook and Cook, Japan at War, p. 193.

  20 Martin, Japan and Germany, pp. 86�
�7; Eckert, ‘Total war’, p. 7; Myers and Saburo, ‘Agricultural development in the Empire’, p. 437; Dore and Ouchi, ‘Rural origins’, p. 189.

  21 Wilson, The Manchurian Crisis, p. 126.

  22 Dore, Shinohata, p. 44.

  23 Hane, Peasants, Rebels and Outcastes, pp. 40–41, 113; Martin, Japan and Germany, p. 87.

  24 Smith, A Time of Crisis, pp. 59, 64.

  25 Ibid., p. 72.

  26 Shin’ichi, Manchuria, p. 129.

  27 Hane, Peasants, Rebels and Outcastes, pp. 40–41.

  28 Smith, A Time of Crisis, p. 242.

  29 Hane, Peasants, Rebels and Outcastes, pp. 134–5.

  30 Young, Japan’s Total Empire, p. 324.

  31 Wilson, The Manchurian Crisis, p. 64.

  32 Shin’ichi, Manchuria, pp. 18–20; Barnhart, Japan Prepares, p. 27.

  33 Kershaw, Fateful Choices, p. 94.

  34 Young, ‘Imagined empire’, p. 77.

  35 Peattie, ‘Japanese attitudes towards colonialism’, pp. 120–3.

  36 Iriye, Origins of the Second World War in Asia, p. 6.

  37 Wilson, The Manchurian Crisis, pp. 118, 130.

  38 Smith, A Time of Crisis, p. 81.

  39 Wilson, The Manchurian Crisis, pp. 63–5; Beasley, Japanese Imperialism, p. 177.

  40 Kershaw, Fateful Choices, pp. 103–4.

  41 Dore and Ouchi, ‘Rural origins’, p. 196; Iriye, Origins of the Second World War in Asia, pp. 38–9; Frank, Downfall, pp. 86–7.

  42 Kershaw, Fateful Choices, p. 105.

  43 Barnhart, Japan Prepares, p. 71.

  44 Dore and Ouchi, ‘Rural origins’, pp. 197–9; Wilson, The Manchurian Crisis, pp. 130–1.

  45 Lewis, Rioters and Citizens, pp. 245–6.

  46 Dore and Ouchi, ‘Rural origins’, p. 207.

  47 Ibid., p. 209.

  48 Smith, A Time of Crisis, p. 324.

  49 Ibid., pp. 222–3, 327–8.

  50 Wilson, The Manchurian Crisis, pp. 66–7.

  51 Smith, A Time of Crisis, pp. 270–1, 334–5.

  52 Young, Japan’s Total Empire, pp. 326–8, 335, 341.

  53 Wilson, The Manchurian Crisis, p. 58.

  54 Ibid.

  55 Duus, The Abacus, p. 368; Peattie, ‘Japanese attitudes towards colonialism’, p. 89.

  56 Duus, The Abacus, pp. 306–7, 309–10.

  57 Ibid., p. 312; Tennant, A History of Korea, p. 242; Peattie, ‘Japanese attitudes towards colonialism’, pp. 100–101.

  58 Young, Japan’s Total Empire, p. 316; Duus, ‘Economic dimensions of Meiji imperialism’, pp. 141, 159.