German mortality figures reported for 1913 were 1.086 million,out of a total population of 65 million.As a contrast the 1918 mortality figure was 1.606 million.The only problem with the latter is that they reflect wartime conditions,do not distinguish between civilian and military at home, and contain:
(1)200,000 influenza victims
(2)An estimated 70,000 POW and foreign worker deaths
(3)Hospitalised in Germany,military died of wounds and campaign related disease, around 100,000.
The traumatic affect of the blockade did not really kick in until late 1916(the 'Turnip Winter' onwards),so only in the last two years of the war was there a dramatic decrease in foodstuffs and resulting health problems.As a counter the Spartan diet even had one health benefit---the fall in smoked meat consumption meant that deaths due to diseases of the digestive organs dropped from 134,060 in 1914 to 65,894 in 1918 ; suicides also fell from 14,376 to 10,247.
Sources:
The Social and Political Consequences of the Allied Food Blockade of Germany, 1915-19,P.Howard,The Journal of the German History Society
The Upheaval of War: Family, Work, and Welfare in Europe, 1914-1918, ed J.Winter
The First World War: An Agrarian Interpretation,A.Offer
Niall Ferguson in The Pity of War has this to say:
Was Germany starved into defeat? The idea is one of the most tenacious in modern European historiography. Yet it is almost certainly wrong. In aggregate terms, of course, the average German suffered more than the average Briton, for the simple reason that real per capita income fell in Germany - by around 2.4 % during the war, while in Britain it actually rose. As we have seen, the blockade certainly reduced the German food supply not only by reducing imports of food but, more seriously, by cutting off supplies of fertilizer. And there is no question that grave administrative errors were made, not least the piecemeal way price maxima were imposed by the Federal Council (Bundesrat), which led to price ceilings being lowest for the goods most in demand, and the wholly counterproductive slaughter of 9 million pigs (the notorious Schweinmord) in the spring of 1915, which was supposed to release grain and potatoes for human consumption.
Yet the case can be overstated….German food consumption was reduced, but so was British - and the British suffered far less of an aggregate shortage thanks to the expansion of domestic production. Indeed, according to other figures, German per capita consumption of potatoes and fish was actually higher in 1918 than in 1912-13. Much criticism has been heaped on the German wartime system of food rationing; but it is at least arguable that Britain’s laissez-faire approach was more wasteful and inefficient. The Germans introduced bread rationing in January 1915 and established a War Food Office in May 1916. The Ministry of Food, by contrast, was not set up until December 1916 and was notably ineffective (despite the pleas of William Beveridge) until June 1917, when Lord Davenport was replaced as minister by Lord Rhondda. Alarmed by the appearance of food queues in many cities, the government now introduced rationing of sugar, and began to build up a system of regional and local food distribution; but it was not until April 1918 that a nationwide system of meat rationing was in place, and only three months later that all the basic staples were being rationed. Beginning in mid-1915, France moved much more quickly to requisition grain and control food distribution, but it was only under Anglo-American pressure that steps towards fully fledged rationing were taken, and as late as October 1918 there was a major scandal about profiteering by the consortium responsible for vegetable oil supplies. Historians who extrapolate German ineptitude from grumbles about food shortages and prices should read the identical grumbles which were heard in France in 1917. Yet the Germans had to cope with far more of a food deficit.
Germans certainly went hungry. Instead of the sausages and beer, they had to make do with nasty ersatz products and East European wine. They got thinner: the nutritionist RO Neumann lost 19 kilograms in seven months by living exclusively on the official ration. But the evidence that anyone starved - much less the fantastic figure of 750,000 still cited by some otherwise sensible historians - is not to be found. True, the female mortality rate rose from 14.3 per 1,000 in 1913 to 21.6 per 1,000, a significantly bigger rise than in England (12.2 to 14.6 per 1,000). According to one estimate, around a third of the entire pre-war population of German psychiatric asylums died of hunger, disease or neglect. There was also an increase in the number of people killed by lung disease (1.19 per 1,000 to 2.46) and a sharp increase in deaths of women in childbirth. But the infant mortality rate clearly fell (apart from in Bavaria, where it rose in 1918, and the exceptional case of illegitimate children born in Berlin). In this respect things were much worse in France, where the rate of infant mortality in 1918 was 2.1 % above its 1910-13 level. Moreover, it is arguable that Winter has somewhat overstated the improvement in civilian health experienced in Britain during the war. There was a 25 % increase in deaths from tuberculosis in England and Wales, too, and that seems likely to have been due in part to poor nutrition. Populations have continued to fight wars despite suffering far greater hunger than that experienced by Germans in 1918: the Soviet Union in the Second World War is the most obvious case.
Gyorgy Ranki’s The Economics of the Second World War states that
“the fields in which the lessons of the First World War were constantly applied during the inter-war period were not armaments,but food and agriculture.”The success of Greater Germany, with 80 million souls, in feeding itself during the war years was due to the emphasis on improving the supply side of foodstuffs; tinkering with demand by eliminating 70,000 disabled had no impact in the big picture of things.Rationing and price freezes brought in for items like sugar and fats limited scarcity but these were not essential dietary needs.
In 1939 Germany had a stockpile of some 6 million tons of bread grain and 2.4 million of fodder grain.Morever it was self –sufficient in potatoes and sugar-beet.During the war the 2.5 million agriculture workers called to arms were replaced by forced labour (including POWs) which eventually numbered 2.7 million foreign farm workers by 1944(in contrast the 3.3 million German agricultural workers called up 1914-18 were unsuccessfully replaced with only 900,000 POWs,mainly Russian,working on the land).The ruthless plundering of Occupied Europe also played its part.In contrast to the 1,200 calories per day allocated to each German civilan in 1918, 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.
Of course this is all in hindsight and decisions made in the late 1930s may have been made on a worst case basis of a repeat of 1914-18….but many lessons on the supply side of foodstuffs had been learnt.
I find this nexus due to the famine in Germany between 1916-18 interesting,especially the bitterness aspect, though it’s a bit hard to subscribe to the‘brain damaged’ aspect of German youth in their irrationality supporting Hitler.From a review of
The Politics of Hunger: The Allied Blockade Of Germany, 1915-1919 by C. Paul Vincent
The end result of the blockade and especially of its continuation after November 11,1918, was, as Vincent terms it in the title of his sixth and final chapter, "The Making of a Quagmire." Even while the blockade was being enforced and strengthened, perceptive observers on both sides pointed out the dangers inherent in its continuation, which could lead only to a complete breakdown of the social order. Even though the immediate situation was saved by a last-minute relaxation of the blockade on food, the longer-term results of the resultant famine were still disasterous. As Vincent observes :
Whether one espouses the psychoanalytical argument that childhood deprivation fostered irrational behavior in adulthood or the physiological assertion that widespread malnutrition in childhood led to a impaired ability to think rationally in adulthood, the conclusion remains the same: the victimized youth of 1915-1920 were to become the most radical adherents of National Socialism.
Additionally, Vincent observes "By the same wisdom, however, one cannot intellectually dismiss the important possibility that blockade-induced starvation was a significant factor in the formation of the Nazi character." His conclusion is that:
The ominious amalgamation of twisted emotion and physical degeneration, which was to presage considerable misery for Germany and the world, might have been prevented had it not been for the postwar policy of the Allies. The immediate centerpiece of this policy was the blockade.
