Why was the harvest in Poland in 1942 so much better than it was in 1941?

[Futurist]

Why was the harvest in Poland in 1942 so much better than it was in 1941?

[wm]

I don't think anybody knows, it just happens.
One thing, the previous winter was the harshest in history, so lots of plant pests didn't make it.
Another the Germans invested their resources in improving Polish agriculture, provided fertilizers, educated the peasants. That gave results too.

[Futurist]

Interesting. Did Polish harvests after 1942 tend to be as good as the Polish harvest in 1942 was?

Also, do you think that as good of a Polish harvest (as in 1942) in 1941 would have prevented the Holocaust?

[wm]

No, it merely saved the Poles from more harsh measures.
Barbarossa required tens of millions of Russians to be starved, and Poland couldn't save them. Poland after the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact wasn't that big.
Disregarding any moral consideration - the Holocaust had to happen - victory wasn't possible without it, and even with it wasn't assured.

The Polish harvests after 1942 were (more or less) as good as in 1942.

[Futurist]

Was starving millions of Soviet POWs also done to reduce pressure on food supplies/food stocks in German-controlled Europe?

Also, just how much worse do you think that the Poles would have fared had the 1942 harvest looked more like the 1941 harvest?

BTW, what did the 1939 and 1940 harvests look like?

[wm]

Of course, the idea was the Wehrmacht was going to live off the land and the natives were going to get leftovers.
It was much easier to starve the POWs than the general population.

I don't think we know much about harvests in 1939 or 1940. The system to measure such things simply didn't exist.
Poland was a "primitive" country in comparison with the West.
Gathering statistics, regulating agriculture bureaucracy simply didn't exist. They say it was easier to hide a bunch of cows from the Germans in Poland than a single egg in Belgium.
Well regulated countries are quite deadly in hard times.

[Futurist]

Of course, the idea was the Wehrmacht was going to live off the land and the natives were going to get leftovers.
It was much easier to starve the POWs than the general population.

I don't think we know much about harvests in 1939 or 1940. The system to measure such things simply didn't exist.
Poland was a "primitive" country in comparison with the West.
Gathering statistics, regulating agriculture bureaucracy simply didn't exist. They say it was easier to hide a bunch of cows from the Germans in Poland than a single egg in Belgium.
Well regulated countries are quite deadly in hard times.

Did the Nazis introduce great record-keeping to Poland in 1941?

[wm]

It wasn't great, maybe adequate. It was better than nothing.
Mass corruption among the Germans in Poland prevented it from being great. Goebbels wrote about the Polish disease - that German officials had to be reassigned from Poland after three months.
In Poland everything was for sale, you could avoid your taxes, or food requisition, or free your relative from Auschwitz - for a price.

[Futurist]

It wasn't great, maybe adequate. It was better than nothing.
Mass corruption among the Germans in Poland prevented it from being great. Goebbels wrote about the Polish disease - that German officials had to be reassigned from Poland after three months.
In Poland everything was for sale, you could avoid your taxes, or food requisition, or free your relative from Auschwitz - for a price.

Really? Wealthy Jews could bribe their way to escape from Auschwitz?

[wm]

It seems you are under the impression Auschwitz was for the Jews, when in fact (alive) Jews formed a small minority there.
Even more, many people were sent for a specified term (e.g., for tax avoidance) and released.

As to wealthy Jews, one example is Yussele Ehrlich, a know pre-war criminal and counterfeiter. When the Germans started to liquidate the criminal underground in Warsaw in 1940 he was sent to Auschwitz and quickly released. Ringelblum writes he immediately returned to counterfeiting on a mass scale.
Later he became the commandant of the Jewish Prison in the Warsaw Ghetto.

[Futurist]

What ultimately happened to Yussele Ehrlich? Did he actually survive the war and the Holocaust?

[wm]

According to the Ringelblum Archive, he didn't survive beyond 1943.

[Futurist]

Murdered by the Nazis at Auschwitz?

[Futurist]

BTW, do we have concrete, specific data as to which European countries were net food importers and which ones were net food exporters on the eve of World War II?

[wm]

All western countries depended on food imports (Britain if I'm not mistaken imported 60 percent.)
During the ww1 estimated 600,000 people died from malnutrition in Germany and Austro-Hungary.

In 1912 and 1913, years of exceptionally high home production, the excess of imports of grains and potatoes alone averaged 6,250,000 tons-2,000,000 tons of wheat, 3,000,000 tons of barley and 1,000,000 tons of corn, with smaller quantities of potatoes and rice. Meat and animal products, oil-cake and agricultural products used for fodder, were also imported in large quantities.

Various estimates and guesses of the proportion of total consumption that is imported have been made. Low esti-mates of the dependence of Germany upon foreign supplies of food are based on the proportion, 10 per cent., of the bread-grains and 3-5 per cent. of the meat products, that is directly imported, ignoring the fact that large amounts of meat and animal and vegetable products may be derived indirectly from abroad by import of fodder and fertilizers.

Ballod, a German statistician who has written on the problem of the food supply, thinks that, including all kinds of vegetable food-stuffs imported, one third of all grains and vegetable food-products is imported; of meat products, one half comes directly or indirectly from abroad.
A careful and complete estimate has been made by Kuczynski and Zuntz, the former director of the Municipal Statistical Bureau of Berlin-Schoneberg, the latter director of the Institute of Animal Physiology of the Royal Agricultural High School in Berlin. In determining the proportion of food imported to the total consumed, the different kinds of food-stuffs are compared in terms of calories, or units of hept energy, contained in the respective foods; and also in terms of the amounts of protein, or nitrogeneous compounds, a certain quantity of which is an indis-pensable part of the daily ration. Of the total consumption of food in the years 1912-1913, these two authors estimate that 29 per cent. of the protein and 20 per cent. of the calories were imported. Of the total grains and plant foods used for human consumption, there was imported 9 per cent. of the heat energy and 15 per cent. of the protein content. Of the total meat supply 44 per cent. of the protein and 43 per cent. of the calories were imported either directly in the form of live cattle and dressed meats, or indirectly in the form of fodder for cattle and hogs.
Statistics of the Food Supply in Germany Robert Morse Woodbury

Murdered by the Nazis at Auschwitz?

In 1943 Jews from Warsaw weren't sent to Auschwitz, it was too costly and the Holocaust was done "on the cheap."
The source doesn't say what happened and it's the only one that mentions his fate I know.