Wartime Rationing in 3rd Reich

[Simon K]

I wonder if any members have information on German civilian ration scales at certain times in the war; i.e 1939 - 40, 1942, (I believe ration amounts were cut and then restored in that year) and 1944 -35.information on items, amounts and any substitute or bonus items would all be very welcome. I know chapter and verse on British wartime provisioning, but the net does not seem to be giving me these answers! Any help much appreciated.

Simon K

[Vikki]

Hello Simon,

See http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=40650

Best,
~Vikki

[Simon K]

Thanks for that Vikki.
Just expand a little bit,any one got pics of foodstore interiors, consumers buying products.
I had a greatt in action pic of a Berlin "supermarket" c 1942 but ive lost it.
Dony know if it better to start a new thread Vikki? Maybe "food,shops and consumers in 3R"
Simon K

[Vikki]

Here's one for a start: queueing for food in Berlin after a bombing raid. From Die Wehrmacht magazine, 15.12.1943.

[Simon K]

I wish I could find that pic! It looks like a small convenience store, well presented,mostly canned foods.Well displayed.Self service, with baskets!
Thanks for pic

[Jon G.]

Also see this thread

Calories per day
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=39928

From Bronsky's post on that thread
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 20#p749820

...The average German allocation was 3000 calories prewar. This dropped to 2078 calories in 1942/3 (ration periods 41-53), then 1981 calories 1943/4 (ration periods 54-66), then 1671 calories 1944/5 (ration periods 67-79) then 1412 calories 1945/6 (ration periods 80-92). Ration periods seem to be for 4 weeks (13 to a year) starting in September 1939. Which makes ration period 67 October 1944.

Yet another set, from Kuczynski's "Geschichte der Lage der Arbeiter in Deutschland" for calories of distributed rations:

1939-40: 3,165
1940-41: 3,295
1941-42: 3,620
1942-43: 3,510
09/44 to 01/45: 2,828...

...and also see this thread

British Blockade and WW2 Food Shortage
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=84248

[Simon K]

Thanks Jon.
Just reading the clash on the Bronsky post

[Jon G.]

You're welcome, Simon. Try a forum search, many threads with nominally different subjects deal with wartime rationing too.

Regarding your comment to Vikki's pic

I wish I could find that pic! It looks like a small convenience store, well presented,mostly canned foods.Well displayed.Self service, with baskets!
Thanks for pic

Self-service, no way The caption to the pic is actually talking about business being conducted via a provisory counter set up by the shop's shattered windows.

[Simon K]

Jon ive got a pic that shows a self service German supermarket but I cant find the bloody thing! It even shows the buyers with baskets! Metal ones.
Its really bugging me now.

[Simon K]

It was reproduced in a part work called Images Of War (UK)
It was in the battle of Kusk issue, German home front article.

[David Thompson]

See also "Counting Calories" at http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=139314

[Annelie]

in 1941 the average German consumer received 2,400 calories per day,slightly dropping to 2,200 in 1943,and some 2,000 calories by 1945.Milk,bread and potato rations were constant until the last months of the war.

I cannot believe those figures quoted. I suppose it depended on where the average German consumer lived?
Believe those in Berlin and other major cities were not able to find enough food to equal 2,000 calories
a day even if it was bread, milk and potatoes.

In fact today it is said the average female should respectably consume about 1500 calories.

[Jon G.]

in 1941 the average German consumer received 2,400 calories per day,slightly dropping to 2,200 in 1943,and some 2,000 calories by 1945.Milk,bread and potato rations were constant until the last months of the war.

I cannot believe those figures quoted. I suppose it depended on where the average German consumer lived?

Not unless there was regional variance in the ration cards issued. As I understand it, the figures are derived from calculating the daily calories one would get when one had exchanged all one's ration stamps for food. But you should draw a big, fat line under average; there were various ration brackets - people with heavy work got more than the average; people with very heavy work got still more, and there were also additional milk rations for eg. mothers with children. Conversely, people with office jobs and similar got less, as did children, women and the elderly.

[Annelie]

But you should draw a big, fat line under average; there were various ration brackets - people with heavy work got more than the average; people with very heavy work got still more, and there were also additional milk rations for eg. mothers with children. Conversely, people with office jobs and similar got less, as did children, women and the elderly.

That is reasonable.

I should like to ask a few that were there at the time and get their opinions and knowledge on this.

[Vikki]

I cannot believe those figures quoted. I suppose it depended on where the average German consumer lived? Believe those in Berlin and other major cities were not able to find enough food to equal 2,000 calories
a day even if it was bread, milk and potatoes.

That is my sense of the situation too, Annelie, from reading period civilians' accounts. Those levels of calories may have been officially allotted to civilians depending on their classifications, but the question is how much of those amounts they were actually able to obtain. Witness accounts of housewives queueing up hours before shops opened because, especially toward the end of the war, shops were notorious for running out of food before everyone had purchased what they were allowed according to their ration cards.

Best,
~Vikki