Herbert Backe's Hunger Plan

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michael mills
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Re: Herbert Backe's Hunger Plan

#16

Post by michael mills » 15 Sep 2016, 10:13

So basically not different from what Stalin did in the beginning of the 1930s, treating millions of lives as disposable, even if not expressing a clear intent to murder them.
Yes.

The claim that Stalin was trying to exterminate the Ukrainian nation through starvation is nonsense.

What he was trying to do was to ensure an adequate food supply to the urban population by the forced extraction of food from the peasantry, without any regard for whether that would cause a famine among the rural population.

Backe was proposing much the same thing.

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Re: Herbert Backe's Hunger Plan

#17

Post by michael mills » 15 Sep 2016, 10:27

Last year I read a book by Lars Lih, "Bread and Authority in Russia, 1914-1921", which described the measures undertaken by both the Imperial and Bolshevik rulers on Russia to establish firm government control of the food supply in the period from the outbreak of war to the introduction of the NEP.

What Stalin did in 1932-33 was essentially a repetition of those measures, eg using military force to prevent the free flow of food from one region to another so as to preserve a government monopoly of food distribution.


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Re: Herbert Backe's Hunger Plan

#18

Post by Jan-Hendrik » 24 Jan 2021, 20:04

That's how it was done in 'realty'


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Re: Herbert Backe's Hunger Plan

#19

Post by michael mills » 25 Jan 2021, 06:25

This an extremely important document which disproves the allegation that the German occupiers intended to impose starvation on the civilian population of the occupied Soviet territories in order to exterminate it.

The document describes the goal of ensuring the supply of sufficient food to the civilian population so as to preserve it as a labour force, and also to win the cooperation of the people. It forbids any unauthorised seizure of grain and animals from the civilian population, and any sort of plundering, and orders that all requisitioned goods must be paid for. Finally, it threatens court-martial for any infringement of those orders.

Another important elements in the document is the confirmation that there had been a food supply crisis during the preceding winter, that of 1941-42. It was that food supply crisis that was the main cause of the very high mortality of the Red Army personnel who had been captured during 1941, not a genocidal policy as so often alleged.

For the information of readers, here is my translation of the initial part of the document, summarising its purpose.
Subject: Reconstruction of Agriculture and Prohibition of Requisitioning

I. Fundamentals

The difficulties in the food supply that occurred during the winter have been overcome for the most part. For the mud season, the troops have been provided with sealed rations for 14 days in addition to regular rations.

The preservation of the civilian population as a labour force is a vital necessity. for both military and economic reasons. The population now possesses only the minimum food necessary to survive the time until the new harvest.

Furthermore, the local population must retain as much seed-grain as well as cattle and equipment as to allow them in the spring to be able to cultivate as much private land (one half-hectare per family) as required for their feeding in the coming year. In addition, the stringent food situation of our people compels us to cultivate in this year the greatest possible amount of the conquered land and thereby to secure for the coming years the feeding of the homeland, in particular of the army of occupation.

In addition, by these measures the Russian people will be shown that our weapons do not bring destruction to their land, but rather reconstruction, order and work. That is the best propaganda work, that is carried out solely by the troops themselves. Only in this way will the population be drawn to cooperation and their mentality and attitude toward our troops (partisan warfare) be basically influenced and changed.
Jann-Hendrik reserves our thanks for providing the link to this important document.

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Re: Herbert Backe's Hunger Plan

#20

Post by Jan-Hendrik » 25 Jan 2021, 10:12

More

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Re: Herbert Backe's Hunger Plan

#21

Post by wm » 29 Jan 2021, 00:42

Documents from 1942 can't disprove genocidal intentions formulated in 1941.
All that happened at the end of 1941 and 1942 was unplanned and not foreseen in 941.

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Re: Herbert Backe's Hunger Plan

#22

Post by michael mills » 29 Jan 2021, 03:33

They cast doubt on whether there were any such genocidal plans. The documents at issue show an intention to provide the Soviet civilian population with enough food to keep it alive. If it had been the German intention in 1941 to exterminate millions of Soviet citizens by starvation, then the documents dating from the middle of 1942, show that such an intention no longer existed.

If one believes that a genocidal intention really existed in 1941 but no longer existed in 1942, then it is necessary to demonstrate the process how that original intention came to be abandoned, and why it was abandoned.

If such a process cannot be conclusively demonstrated, then the conclusion must be that a genocidal intention did not originally exist. In that case, Backe's words uttered in May 1941, about the starvation of tens of millions unless they were able to move to Siberia, must be seen not as a plan to commit a genocide, but rather as his guess about the likely consequences of his food extraction plan, consequences that in fact did not occur.

In any case, even historians such as Gerlach who claim that a "hunger plan", a plan to deliberately starve millions of Soviet citizens to death, really did exist, admit that the starvation foreseen by Backe did not actually occur during the winter of 1941-42, except to a limited extent such as in the case of the around two million Soviet POWs who died, and also admit that when in the spring of 1942 the German occupiers observed that tens of millions had not died, they did not try any alternative means of causing those tens of millions of deaths. Furthermore, those historians are unable to provide a credible explanation for why the German occupiers did not try to accomplish their alleged genocidal intentions by other means.

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Re: Herbert Backe's Hunger Plan

#23

Post by wm » 21 Feb 2021, 10:44

The intention itself wasn't genocidal, they didn't intend to kill millions for the sake of it.
The Hunger Plan and millions of its victims were the intended consequences of the Barbarossa plan and the Wehrmacht's need to live off the land.

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Re: Herbert Backe's Hunger Plan

#24

Post by Nautilus » 10 Mar 2021, 15:09

They accepted the possibility that a disruption of the civilian life should result in mass death on a large scale (which it happened, but "only" for "fewer" millions).

Current Syrian civil war displacement resulted in 2/3 of the pre-2013 population loosing their livelihood and number of deaths in the hundreds of thousands.

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Re: Herbert Backe's Hunger Plan

#25

Post by wm » 10 Mar 2021, 23:24

According to the Hague Conventions
prisoners of war shall be treated as regards board, lodging, and clothing on the same footing as the troops of the Government who captured them
no exception.
So what the Germans did to the Soviet POWs was a massive war crime and a hanging offense.
Similarly, excessive requisitions of food, leading to hardship (not to mention death) were forbidden so the plan (even if "well-intended") was another massive war crime and another hanging offense.

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Re: Herbert Backe's Hunger Plan

#26

Post by michael mills » 11 Mar 2021, 05:02

It you are going to look at the food-extraction plan from the point of view of determining whether its implementation constituted a punishable offence under the applicable international law, you would have to devise some means of determining whether deaths among the Soviet civilian population were the direct result of that implementation, as opposed to other possible causes, such as the scorched-earth policy ordered by Stalin, which resulted in massive destruction of the 1941 cereal crop, or the massive relocation of millions of persons to locations in the Soviet interior where there was insufficient food for them, resulting in large-scale mortality from malnutrition.

For the mass starvation in the unoccupied part of the Soviet Union, I refer you to this book:

"The Bread of Affliction : The Food Supply in the USSR during World War II", by William Moskoff

Published Cambridge [England] ; New York, NY, USA : Cambridge University Press, 1990

Sid Guttridge
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Re: Herbert Backe's Hunger Plan

#27

Post by Sid Guttridge » 11 Mar 2021, 09:27

Hi Guys,

I usually characterize German policy in this regard as "malign neglect". They basically didn't much care so long as their military objectives were met.

It would be interesting to know what pre-planning they made to support the tens of millions of civilians they were intending to over run.

Cheers,

Sid

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Re: Herbert Backe's Hunger Plan

#28

Post by Sheldrake » 11 Mar 2021, 10:46

The food historian Lizzie Collingham analyses the Hunger Plan in The Taste of War. https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B006K0OY7E/ ... TF8&btkr=1

Her conclusion was that the Germans did divert food from the local population to feed the Wehrmacht and attempted to send food to Germany. There were no provisions to feed prisoners of war. The city of Kiev was cordoned off and no food allowed in. Both the Germans and Japanese attempted to exploit the agricultural resources of their conquered territory, but both did inefficiently, destroying markets. In Western Europe many farmers simply cut back production and aimed at self sufficiency.

She also pointed out that different German agencies got in the way of each other. There were practical reasons for feeding helpful locals. Enough soldiers took pity on begging starving locals that edicts were published pointing out that any food given to Russians would be less food for Germans.

The Germans were much less efficient than the Soviet regime in extracting food from the peasants, who were also well practiced in surviving on food that no one else would consider - digging up the corpses of horses, nettles grass etc.

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Re: Herbert Backe's Hunger Plan

#29

Post by wm » 11 Mar 2021, 14:51

The first case is clear - the POWs are entitled to food, divert rations from your soldiers if necessary or face the noose.

In the second case, the overriding principle was that of military necessity.
Thanks to this principle we could drench cities in phosphorous or explode hydrogen bombs over them.
in war a belligerent can destroy or seize all property of whatever nature, public or private, hostile or neutral unless such property is specifically protected by some definite law of war.
But during occupation:
Requisitions in kind shall not be demanded from municipalities or inhabitants except for the needs of the army of occupation. They shall be in proportion to the resources of the country.
practically everything may be requisitioned ... that is necessary for the maintenance of the Army and not of direct military use.
The amount taken
The expression "needs of the army" was adopted rather than "necessities of the war as more favorable to the inhabitants, but the commander is not thereby limited to the absolute needs of the troops actually present.'
The object was to avoid reducing the population to starvation.
So it seems during fighting they had the right to sacrifice the civilians but not later, because:
Territory is considered occupied when it is actually placed under the authority of the hostile army.
( all the examples are from American Rules of Land Warfare(1914) )

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Re: Herbert Backe's Hunger Plan

#30

Post by Sid Guttridge » 11 Mar 2021, 18:32

Hi wm,

No, in the second case, the overriding principle was that of military expediency.

Cheers,

Sid.

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