Sweden feed
The Swedish feed was one of the largest mass feeds financed from abroad after the end of the Second World War , especially for western post-war Germany and Vienna . For almost four years - from the beginning of 1946 to April 1949 - children between the ages of three and six were among them
- 120,000 within the British Zone of Germany and in Berlin as well
- 70,000 children in Austria, 60,000 of them in Vienna.
supplied with four warm soups daily during the winter months .
Post-war situation
Hunger in the coldest winter of the century
The hunger winter of 1946/47 with two months of permafrost in northern Germany was one of the longest and coldest in the 20th century. At a time when homes were destroyed, when thousands lived in overcrowded emergency shelters in the destroyed cities and were often without coal, without electricity and without food, the Swedish feeder saved small children from starvation. In Hamburg and Berlin it was the worst for children in all of post-war Germany, in the Ruhr area and neighboring areas the children in Duisburg , Gladbeck , Gelsenkirchen , Dortmund , Mülheim an der Ruhr , Essen , Bochum , Schwelm , Wuppertal and Bottrop were particularly affected. The infant mortality rate was temporarily at 20 percent and more. The plight of the children was the reason for the relief operation by Folke Bernadotte , which was carried out together with the organization Rädda Barnen - Save the Children Fund. Bernadotte was then President of the Swedish Red Cross. The great majority of the German people, the American ex-President Herbert Hoover wrote to his President Truman in early 1947 after a visit to Germany, had come to the lowest level in terms of food, heating and housing that has been known in western civilization for a hundred years . At the same time, the “Nutrition Council of German Doctors” for Hamburg determined that normal consumer rations were so low that they only covered a third of the requirement and would lead to death in a few months. The children are particularly at risk.
Supply situation in the British zone of Germany
The regional food offices laid in August 1945 with the approval of the British military uniform target rations states: For children up to three years in 1125, continuing daily kilocalories provided children up to six years of age should receive kcal 1250, for adult "average consumer" were planned kcal 1550th In fact, these values were not reached: Between April and August 1946, “normal consumers” only gave between 1109 and 1236 kcal per day. A man who is mainly seated consumes at least 1900 kcal.
Sweden's help from the Red Cross and Rädda Barnen
Swedish soup
In Germany and Austria , the Swedish Red Cross and Rädda Barnen mainly cared for 3- to 6-year-old toddlers as well as malnourished or TBC- prone students and apprentices.
The Swedish citizens donated millions with the "one-crown collection", especially for Germany and Austria, although in Sweden food was still rationed after the war .
The soups often contained meat. Around 40,000 meals were given to children every day in Hamburg alone , 28,000 servings in Berlin and 55,000 in the Ruhr area . Within these four years there were 80 million servings of food, 28 million of which were served in Hamburg alone. In Austria there were 60,000 servings in Vienna alone. Here the Swedish soup consisted of a soup with meat or a dairy dish, white cakes, butter cheese, vitamin tablets, chocolate and sweets.
Folke Bernadotte , who took Scandinavian concentration camp inmates to Sweden on the white buses at the beginning of 1945 , was the inventor and organizer of Swedish meals in at least eleven countries in Europe. Help should be given to all children in need, regardless of “their class, religion or political opinion” of their parents. In Germany, the Swedes wanted to help because they believed that help from a neutral country was particularly important. In Hamburg, food was served free of charge in up to 350 distribution points across the city. Thousands of volunteer helpers, who were also allowed to eat the soup themselves, looked after the many children at two serving times every day - even in severe frost and completely inadequate traffic conditions. Each child had to bring their own eating utensils; sometimes it was just an empty tin can . The children had to spoon out the food on the spot, it was supposed to benefit them and was not allowed to be taken home. The German Red Cross made in Hamburg in the slaughterhouse in the largest commercial kitchen in Europe for 160,000 servings auxiliary power supplies per day for all groups in the population and the Hamburg public (HEW) attended by Kraftwerk Karoline from the steam supply; because with steam cooking one needed less coal to burn.
Arne Karlsson organized the help of Rädda Barnen in Austria ( see also ↑ Arne-Karlsson-Park ).
“Feeding from Sweden” became a synonym for aid in the hard years after the war, regardless of whether it was the Swedes who helped, or Americans, Swiss, Chileans, Danes, British, South Africans or others. However, “Sweden feed” was the common term in most places. The help was especially effective for the small children. Most of them remained healthy and there were no serious epidemics.
Europahjälpen
The Swedish European Aid from the Red Cross and Rädda Barnen went much further. In addition to medicines, including cod liver oil and adoptions of orphans, for example, E.g .: the Sweden packages d. H. Parcels with food as well as donated 300 tons of clothing and shoes. Children's homes and kindergartens were also supported in Austria .
The aid also included children in Hungary , Romania and what was then Yugoslavia .
In addition to the help from Denmark mentioned below, European aid also came from another Scandinavian country, which was severely affected by the war - from Norway, which offered recreational care.
Further bulk feeds
In the British Zone, the English also provided school meals for the pupils . It began in early 1946 in larger cities in Schleswig-Holstein, in Hamburg and in several cities in the Ruhr area; smaller rural communities were added later. The food donations came initially from the stocks of the military government , from 1947 from the Danish Red Cross and the Hoover donation: Since then, until the end of the campaign in 1949, it was also called the Hoover feeding .
In addition to the Hoover feeding and the other foreign aid listed in this article, there was also the Quaker feeding from the USA from 1946 and, above all, the Swiss Dörfli and help for Swiss children from Switzerland .
It should also be noted that the majority of the support projects mentioned provided aid to Germany and Austria during or after the First World War .
literature
- Carsten Stern: Sweden feed and Red Cross in Hamburg. Mass meals 1946–1949 for Hamburg toddlers during the starvation period. Wachholtz, Neumünster 2008, ISBN 978-3-529-05231-6 .
- Folke Bernadotte : Instead of weapons. (Original title: I stället för vapen. , Translated from Swedish by Werner Röpke). Klemm, Freiburg im Breisgau 1948, DNB 450405737 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Svenska kommittén för internationell hjälpverksamhet: Sveriges internationelle hjälpverksamhet, 1939–1950 Svenska Europahjälpen. Stockholm, 1956. p. 11.
- ↑ Michael Wildt : The dream of getting full. Hunger and protest, black market and self-help. VSA-Verlag, Hamburg 1986, ISBN 3-87975-379-2 , p. 31.
- ↑ Michael Wildt: The dream of getting full. Hunger and protest, black market and self-help. VSA-Verlag, Hamburg 1986, ISBN 3-87975-379-2 , p. 44.
- ↑ The daily calorie requirement: How many calories do I need? On: vitanet.de, as of August 12, 2011; Retrieved January 7, 2012.
- ^ Elsa Björkman-Goldschmidt: It happened in Vienna . Böhlau, Vienna, p. 409ff, ISBN 978-3-205-77631-4 .
- ^ Walter Thorun: Aid from abroad and the occupying powers in youth welfare and social work in a life-history retrospect . Books on Demand. S. 59ff, ISBN 3-8334-5130-0 .
- ^ Elsa Björkman-Goldschmidt: ibid .
- ↑ Walter Thorun: ibid .
- ↑ Carsten Stern: Sweden feed and Red Cross in Hamburg. Mass meals 1946–1949 for Hamburg toddlers during the starvation period. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 2008, ISBN 978-3-529-05231-6 , pp. 20-21.