Turnip winter

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Announcement of potato rationing, Pirmasens 1917
Turnip map, Erfurt 1917

The rutabaga winter , even rutabaga winter and winter of hunger called, refers to a famine in the German Reich in the winter of 1916-17 during the First World War , triggered by war economic problems and the British naval blockade in the North Sea .

Famine during the substitute economy

Until the outbreak of war, the German Reich imported about a third of its food. At that time it was the world's largest importer of agricultural products.

After the start of the war in 1914, Great Britain issued a trade embargo against Germany and an increasingly effective trade blockade at sea , which was not lifted until 1919. There were also no imports from Russia . In January 1917, the USA finally stopped secret trade with Germany via neutral countries.

An even more important reason for the shortage was the excessive bureaucracy and counterproductive measures of price and distribution policy. It came to food rationing and forced regulation. German agriculture also lacked labor, draft animals and artificial fertilizers; there were also transport problems.

Turnips or turnips

The black market played only a minor role, hamster trips to the countryside became more important , which sometimes led to sharp differences between urban and rural residents. Although these trips resulted in massive violations of state regulations, the municipalities also participated in their organization.

During this time, Konrad Adenauer emerged as the first alderman of the city of Cologne by ensuring that the people of Cologne were supplied with substitute foods such as “Cologne bread” made from rice, barley and corn flour or barley . These food surrogates were not very tasty, which is why the nickname “Graupenauer” was not meant to be flattering. The invention and distribution of such food surrogates , which were not subject to farming until the fourth year of the war, was good business. At the beginning of 1918 there were 11,000 such products in Germany.

In May 1916 the War Food Office was founded, which was directly subordinate to the Reich Chancellor. It was responsible for ensuring the supply of the population and tied all the interested parties: a classic example of the German war corporatism the years 1914 to 1918. To the truce not to endanger the war food office turned to drastic measures to him of the accusation "State socialism" brought in, for example an increase in the rations for heavy and heavy workers and a direct delivery of the armaments factories with food, because the workers wanted to avoid queuing. In addition, the feeding of potatoes was banned. The authorities fought against the concealment of supplies from the producers. Despite these efforts, the War Food Office failed in an attempt to prevent a famine.

Due to the early onset of rationing of grain products and the almost complete lack of meat and sausage products on offer, potato consumption rose to two and a half times the pre-war level at the beginning of 1916. A rainy autumn in 1916 caused potato rot , which reduced the harvest to around half that of the previous year. In terms of the food industry, Germany lost the war as early as 1916. The turnip , a type of cabbage, became the most important food for large sections of the population. They ate turnip soup, turnip casserole, turnip cutlets, turnip pudding, turnip jam and turnip bread. With the nickname "Hindenburg-Knolle" it was named after the German commander-in-chief Paul von Hindenburg . On December 4, 1916, the War Food Office ordered the confiscation of all stocks of turnips to secure the people's food.

In the winter of 1916/1917 there was an unexpected cold snap. In addition, the apartments were hardly heated anymore due to the lack of coal. The population was partially supplied with makeshift soup kitchens .

In the spring of 1917 the supply of food to the population sank to its lowest point. The autumn harvest brought a slight improvement. However, it had dropped to half of a normal yield. At the same time, the allocated foods had an average of 1,000  kcal . The catastrophic food situation contributed to the wave of strikes that, starting in Berlin and Leipzig, hit the German armaments industry in April 1917.

Between 1914 and 1918, around 800,000 people died in Germany as a result of malnutrition . Health deficiencies were exacerbated by the fact that personal hygiene was only possible to a limited extent, as only 50 g of soap per month, which had a maximum fat content of 20 percent, contained fillers such as clay and soapstone and could only be obtained via soap cards, were allowed per person. From the spring of 1918, the Spanish flu followed in three waves, of which the second (in autumn 1918) and the third (1919) claimed many lives in addition to hunger due to the lack of food imports due to the continuing British trade embargo.

See also

Web links

literature

  • Dieter Baudis: "From pig murder to swede winter". Side lights on the development of living conditions in Berlin during the First World War (August 1914 to spring 1917) . In: Yearbook for Economic History , special volume 1986: On the economic and social history of Berlin from the 17th century to the present, pp. 129–152, Akademieverlag, online
  • Gustavo Corni : hunger . In: Gerhard Hirschfeld , Gerd Krumeich , Irina Renz (eds.): Encyclopedia First World War . Schöningh (UTB), Paderborn 2009, p. 565 ff.
  • Arnulf Huegel: Germany's war food economy during the First and Second World Wars in comparison. 1st edition. Hartung-Gorre, Konstanz 2003, ISBN 3-89649-849-5 .
  • Gisela Gündell: The organization of the German food industry in the First World War. Leipzig 1939
  • Anne Roerkohl: Hunger Blockade and Home Front. The communal food supply in Westphalia during the First World War. Studies on the history of everyday life, Volume 10, Stuttgart 1991
  • Hans-Heinrich Müller: Turnips and calf teeth. The hunger winter 1916/17 in Berlin . In: Berlin monthly magazine ( Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein ) . Issue 1, 1998, ISSN  0944-5560 , p. 45-49 ( luise-berlin.de ).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The fight in the kitchens . Spiegel Online special, March 30, 2004
  2. ^ Franziska Dunkel: Supplying the civilian population . In: Carnival of Hell. The First World War and the senses . House of History Baden-Württemberg, Stuttgart 2014, p. 110.
  3. ↑ a b c Swede winter . German Historical Museum .
  4. ↑ Potato supply in the First World War . German Historical Museum.
  5. ↑ The sea blockade . German Historical Museum.
  6. ^ Henning Köhler : Germany on the way to itself. A history of the century , Hohenheim-Verlag, Stuttgart 2002, p. 112 f.
  7. ^ Gustavo Corni : Hunger . In: Gerhard Hirschfeld , Gerd Krumeich and Irina Renz (eds.): Encyclopedia First World War . Schöningh (UTB), Paderborn 2009, p. 565 ff.
  8. ^ Hans-Peter Schwarz : Adenauer. The rise: 1876–1952 , DVA, Stuttgart 1986, p. 152 f.
  9. ^ Gustavo Corni: Hunger . In: Gerhard Hirschfeld, Gerd Krumeich, Irina Renz (eds.): Encyclopedia First World War . Schöningh (UTB), Paderborn 2009, p. 565.
  10. ↑ Hans-Ulrich Wehler : German history of society , Volume 4: From the beginning of the First World War to the founding of the two German states 1914-1949 . CH Beck Verlag, Munich 2003, p. 62.
  11. ↑ The "turnip winter" and the fight on the so-called " home front ". ( online )
  12. ↑ Hans-Ulrich Wehler: German history of society , Volume 4: From the beginning of the First World War to the founding of the two German states 1914-1949 . CH Beck Verlag, Munich 2003, p. 61.
  13. ↑ The population is starving - The turnip winter 1916/1917. (No longer available online.) Paedagogik.net, archived from the original on September 24, 2015 ; accessed on January 23, 2015 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.paedagogik.net
  14. ^ Walter Koch: Turnip winter. Memories from Walter Koch (* 1870) from Dresden, head of the Saxon Food Office. German Historical Museum , accessed on January 23, 2015 .
  15. ↑ Wruke . Stumbling blocks of the German language ( Wikibooks )
  16. ↑ Johannes Ebert (Red.): The Chronicle: History of the 20th Century to Today . Wissen-Media-Verlag, Gütersloh 2006, ISBN 978-3-577-14641-8 , p. 117.
  17. ↑ Hans-Ulrich Wehler : German history of society , Volume 4: From the beginning of the First World War to the founding of the two German states 1914-1949 . CH Beck Verlag, Munich 2003, p. 63.
  18. ^ Hagen Schulze : Weimar. Germany 1917–1933 (=  The Germans and their Nation , Volume 4). Siedler, Berlin 1994, p. 141 f.
  19. ↑ Petra Weber: Failed Social Partnership - Endangered Republic? Industrial relations, labor disputes and the welfare state. Germany and France in comparison (1918–1933 / 39) . Oldenbourg, Munich 2010, p. 165 ff.
  20. ^ Gustavo Corni: Hunger . In: Gerhard Hirschfeld, Gerd Krumeich, Irina Renz (eds.): Encyclopedia First World War . Schöningh (UTB), Paderborn 2009, p. 565.
  21. ↑ Sebastian Dörfler: Deficiency . In: Carnival of Hell. The First World War and the senses. House of History Baden-Württemberg, Stuttgart 2014, pp. 116–119.