Fat gap

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The term Fettlücke referred to the German Reich's lack of raw materials in fats and oils . In addition to the “protein gap” and the “fiber gap”, it was one of the three major production gaps. Particularly in the time of National Socialism , the intention was to end the dependence of the German Reich on the import of technical fats and dietary fats ( autarky ). This led to an insufficient supply of feed, which in turn had a negative effect on animal husbandry. The three ways to close the gaps were to increase yields, control consumption and, with the turn of the war in 1941/42, the various synthesis processes . Concrete measures for this were the production battle from 1935 , the (second) four-year plan from 1936 , rationing before the outbreak of war on August 27, 1939, and not least from 1941 the Barbarossa company , the war of aggression against the Soviet Union. Due to the production battle, the level of self-sufficiency in animal and vegetable fats could only be increased slightly (between 1933/34 and 1938/39 from 53% to 57%).

1933 to 1939

While in the first years of the Third Reich the rest of the population's food supply could largely be covered by their own agriculture, the protein and fat supply depended to a considerable extent on imports: in 1936, only 68.8% of the per capita Generated fat consumption for nutrition. According to contemporary experts, in 1936 there was a "production gap" of 1 million tons of fat in the fat supply that had to be covered by imports. For 1937 90% of the industrial fat requirement had to be covered by imports. In 1939 only 57% of the total fat requirement for industry and nutrition could be covered from own production.

A Reich Office for Oils and Fats established in April 1933 bundled the state regulation of the domestic market by setting prices and price ranges as well as allocating imports and production. In addition, there was "consumption control" through propaganda and pricing: the consumption of bread, potatoes and sugar was to be encouraged, jam was recommended and subsidized as a spread, and stew Sunday was supposed to save meat and fat.

The margarine industry was largely dependent on imports of raw materials. As early as April 1933, a "fat tax" was levied, which almost doubled the margarine price. Production was throttled to 60% by ordinances, but a little later the production of an inexpensive “household margarine” was secured, which welfare recipients and the unemployed could buy against a voucher.

In November 1934, Minister of Agriculture Walther Darré called for a production battle . Despite great efforts, the growth rate of agricultural value added remained low until 1939. The new German whaling fleet could not meet the import demand for fats and came to a standstill with the outbreak of the Second World War .

As part of the four-year plan, Herbert Backe was the head of the "Nutrition Business Group" and Wilhelm Keppler for the "Industrial Fats Business Group". To close the “fat gap”, the area under cultivation for oil plants (rape, flax) should be enlarged, dairy farming and pig fattening should be promoted and fat consumption should be reduced. In addition, fat recovery and synthetic production were aimed at, particularly for industrial purposes. In fact, despite numerous regulatory measures, it was not possible to significantly increase self-sufficiency with fat and to close the “fat gap”.

The butter imports halved between 1929 and 1936 from 136,000 to almost 75,000 tons. That was probably due to the global economic crisis and its consequences for the world economic system .

An obligation to deliver milk, coupled with the ban on buttering for personal use, could not ensure the supply. The SoPaDe “Germany Report” reported in 1935 that there were long queues in front of the butter shops in Berlin. Joseph Goebbels (“ Reich Minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda ”) noted in his diary: “The queues in front of the shops are breeding grounds for sabotage.” - “Butter and fat shortage. We need to take action now. And rigorous. ”In November 1935, customer lists were introduced to make it more difficult to“ buy hamsters ”for butter; at the same time foreign exchange was released for imports.

At the beginning of 1936 Goebbels made an offensive plea to the population's sense of sacrifice to renounce armament in favor of armament : “ If necessary, we will be able to cope without butter, but never without cannons.” Hermann Göring , to whom the motto “cannons instead of butter” is wrongly ascribed , found a "voluntary" reduction in fat consumption by 25 percent necessary. Rudolf Hess used the catchphrase “cannons instead of butter” in a speech on October 11, 1936 and called for supply bottlenecks to be accepted and for wars to be restricted.

1939 to 1945

"Reichsfettkarte" for young people from 1941

The “ standard card”, which had been rationing food since August 27, 1939, was soon differentiated: from the end of 1939 there were fat cards and the categories of heavy and hard workers, night and long-time workers and food cards for children and young people. 1940 saw the first cuts in the food allocation. However, major restrictions could be avoided by the end of 1941. However, a memo dated May 2, 1941 states:

“1.) The war can only be continued if the entire armed forces are fed from Russia in the third year of the war.
2.) There is no doubt that tens of millions of people will starve to death if what is necessary for us is taken out of the country.
3.) The most important thing is the recovery and removal of oil seeds, oil cakes , and then grain. [...] "

The requisition of 400,000 tons of oil and 1 million tons of oil cake was planned to supply the German civilian population with fat. In the two marketing years 1941/42 and 1942/43 the occupiers brought more than 632,000 tons of oilseeds, spreads and edible oils from the conquered parts of the Soviet Union to Germany.

Along with the military situation on the Eastern Front (defeats in front of Moscow and Stalingrad) there were drastic cuts in the food supply in 1942; the fat filtration for "normal consumers" was reduced from 1053 g to 825 g. According to the Gestapo, this led to “not inconsiderable unrest, especially among workers” and “the mood ... had reached a low that had not yet been established in the course of the war.” In October 1942, “the medical profession [...] soon saw an increase the fettration is considered to be absolutely necessary, since the state of health of the population has deteriorated significantly since the previous year. "

After the Second World War

The fat gap itself was not a decidedly National Socialist problem: it was already visible during the famine in the First World War ( turnip winter ) and continued into the 1950s. In 1950, the ration cards were abolished in West Germany ; in the GDR only in May 1958. Due to the rigorous measures of the Nazi regime , however, the problem received special attention in connection with the history of the Third Reich .

See also

literature

  • Ulrich Kluge, War and Malnutrition in National Socialism, in: Contributions to historical social studies 15 (1985), Issue 2, pp. 67–73.
  • Wilhelm Deist , Manfred Messerschmidt , Hans-Erich Volkmann , Wolfram Wette , Causes and Requirements of the Second World War, Frankfurt a. M. 1989, especially pp. 412-417.
  • Gerd R. Ueberschär , Wolfram Wette (ed.): The German attack on the Soviet Union. “Enterprise Barbarossa” 1941. Fischer: Frankfurt am Main 1991, ISBN 3-596-24437-4 .
  • Gustavo Corni , Horst Gies , Bread-Butter-Cannons: The Food Industry in Germany under Hitler's Dictatorship, Akademie Verlag: Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-05-002933-1 .
  • Arnulf Huegel, Germany's war food industry during the First and Second World Wars in comparison, Konstanz 2003.
  • Reinhold Reith, “Hurray, the butter is all!” - “Fat gap” and “Protein gap” in the Third Reich , in: Michael Pammer, Herta Neiß, Michael John (eds.), Experience of Modernity. Festschrift for Roman Sandgruber for his 60th birthday , Stuttgart 2007, pp. 403–426. ISBN 978-3-515-09020-9 .
  • Tim Schanetzky, " Cannons Instead of Butter " - Economy and Consumption in the Third Reich . CH Beck: Munich 2015. ISBN 978-3-406-67515-7 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Wilhelm Ziegelmayer: Raw material questions of the German people nutrition. A presentation of the food industry tasks of our time , Dresden / Leipzig 1936, p. 19 f.
  2. ↑ Reinhold Reith : "Hurray the butter is all!" - "Fettlücke" and "Proteinlücke" in the Third Reich, in: Michael Pammer, Herta Neiß, Michael John (eds.): Experience of Modernity. Festschrift for Roman Sandgruber on his 60th birthday, Stuttgart 2007, pp. 403–426, here p. 404.
  3. ↑ Ernst Langthaler: Agricultural Europe under National Socialist auspices (1933-1945), in: Thematic portal European history (2011), URL: < http://www.europa.clio-online.de/2011/Article=503 >.
  4. ↑ Gustavo Corni, Horst Gies: Bread – Butter – Cannons: the food industry in Germany under Hitler's dictatorship, Akademie Verlag: Berlin 1997, pp. 309–318.
  5. ↑ Numbers in Margarete Muths: The German fat gap and the possibility of its closure ... , (Diss.) Bottrop 1938, p. 10 f.
  6. ↑ Reinhold Reith: "Hurray, the butter is all!" - "Fettlücke" and "Proteinlücke" in the Third Reich , in: Michael Pammer, Herta Neiß, Michael John (eds.): Experience of Modernity. Festschrift for Roman Sandgruber on his 60th birthday , Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-515-09020-9 , p. 412, tab. 1.
  7. ↑ Reinhold Reith: “Hurray, the butter is out!” , P. 404.
  8. ↑ Bernd Kaiser: The implications of economic policy frameworks for raw material procurement ... Diss. Erlangen 2009, p. 75 (PDF) (4.94 MB).
  9. ↑ Bernd Kaiser: The Implications of Economic Policy Frameworks for Raw Material Procurement ... Diss. Erlangen 2009, p. 99 (PDF; 5.2 MB)
  10. ↑ VO on the establishment of a Reich Office for Oils and Fats of April 4, 1933 (RGBl. I, p. 166) / (renamed from January 1934 to "Reich Office for Milk Products, Oils and Fats")
  11. ↑ Reinhold Reith: “Hurray, the butter is out!” , P. 409.
  12. ^ VO on the levying of a compensatory charge for fats from April 13, 1933 (RGBl. I, p. 206)
  13. ↑ 2. VO on the commercial manufacture of products from margarine factories ... of June 21, 1933 (RGBl. I, p. 376)
  14. ↑ 3rd VO on the commercial production of products from margarine factories ... of September 23, 1933 (RGBl. I, p. 662)
  15. ^ Stephanie Degler, Jochen Streb: The lost production battle. In: Yearbook for Economic History 2008, Issue 1, p. 177.
  16. ↑ Reinhold Reith: "Hurray, the butter is out!" , P. 411.
  17. ↑ Bernd Kaiser: The Implications of Economic Policy Frameworks for Raw Material Procurement ... Diss. Erlangen 2009, p. 95/96 (PDF; 5.2 MB)
  18. ↑ Bernd Kaiser: The Implications of Economic Policy Frameworks for Raw Material Procurement ... Diss. Erlangen 2009, p. 99 (PDF; 5.2 MB)
  19. ^ Otto Josef Kraus: Theory of interstate economic relations, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1956, p. 154.
  20. ↑ Klaus Behnken (Ed.): Germany reports of the Sopade , Salzhausen 1980, Vol. 2, p. 960.
  21. ^ The diaries of Joseph Goebbels ed. by Elke Fröhlich, Part I 3/1, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-598-23744-8 , p. 323/324 (November 5, 1935).
  22. ↑ Goebbels' speech in January 1936 - quoted from Kurt Bauer: National Socialism: Origins, Beginnings, Rise and Fall, Vienna 2008, ISBN 978-3-205-77713-7 , p. 306.
  23. ^ Richard J. Overy: Hermann Göring. Greed for power and vanity, Wilhelm Heyne: Munich 1986 (EA London 1984), p. 12. In fact, it came from the “Deputy Leader” Rudolf Hess, cf. E. Kordt: Madness and Reality, Stuttgart 1948, p. 44.
  24. ↑ Reinhold Reith: “Hurray, the butter is out!” , P. 408.
  25. ↑ printed in: Wolfgang Michalka: Das Third Reich - documents for internal and external policy, Vol. 1, Munich 1985, ISBN 3-423-02925-0 , p. 191 f / also in: Norbert Frei: Der Führerstaat. National Socialist Rule 1933 to 1945 , Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-406-64449-8 , pp. 226-230.
  26. ↑ Michael Wildt: The dream of getting full, Hamburg 1986, ISBN 3-87975-379-2 , p. 17.
  27. ↑ Reinhold Reith: "Hurray, the butter is out!" , P. 416.
  28. ↑ Document 2718-PS in IMT: The Nuremberg Trial against the Major War Criminals ... , ISBN 3-7735-2524-9 , Vol. 31, p. 84 / Gerhard Ueberschär / Wolfram Wette: The German attack on the Soviet Union, revised. New edition Frankfurt / M: 1991, ISBN 3-596-24437-4 , p. 323.
  29. ↑ Guidelines of the "Wirtschaftsstab Ost" from May 23, 1941 = Document 126-EC in IMT: The Nuremberg Trial against the Major War Criminals ... , ISBN 3-7735-2526-5 , Vol. 36, p. 150 / Gerhard Ueberschär / Wolfram Wette: The German attack ... ; P. 325.
  30. ↑ Götz Aly: Hitler's People's State. Frankfurt / M. 2005, ISBN 3-10-000420-5 , p. 203.
  31. ↑ Michael Wildt: The dream of getting full, Hamburg 1986, ISBN 3-87975-379-2 , p. 17.
  32. ↑ Reports from the Reich ... ed. by Heinz Boberach; Herrsching 1984, ISBN 3-88199-158-1 , Vol. 9, pp. 3504/3505 (from March 23, 1942).
  33. ↑ Reports from the Reich ... ed. by Heinz Boberach; Herrsching 1984, ISBN 3-88199-158-1 , Vol. 11, p. 4352 (from October 19, 1942).