The "artificial" famine in the German-occupied USSR

[Paul Lantos]

few people were literally starving to death before Barbarossa

Except in the ghettos in Warsaw, Lodz, Krakow, Radom, Lublin, etc, of course.

Just like the typhus epidemics, starvation followed the Nazis around.

[Cerdic]

Paul, you are correct on that one ofcourse. That was arguably the first stage of the Genocide policy, though, rather than a natural outcome of the lack of food because of war and blockade.

[Paul Lantos]

I'd argue, though, that famine wasn't a natural outcome of war and certainly not of blockade. The Germans were provisioned off their conquered land so as to avoid famine within Germany. So they made a deliberate policy choice to take food from local people. They also had a scorched earth occupation policy that further deprived people of food. This is not all that removed from genocide policy, since they decided to feed their own people at the expense of millions of lives of conquered people whom they deemed inferior.

Furthermore, inasmuch as famine DOES result from war, Hitler launched the largest land invasion in history involving millions of soldiers and enormous territory -- for an ELECTIVE conflict. Because there is simply no justification for it that can be found outside of the bizarre Nazi ideology, one has to attach moral blame for all of the inevitable consequences -- famine, homelessness, civilian casualties, etc.

[Cerdic]

Paul Lantos - I agree with many of your points. Some argue, however, that Germany's invasion of the USSR was a preemptive strike because the Soviets were preparing to launch an invasion themselves. In that case, your last point would not be valid.

[Marcus]

The claims of a German preemptive strike has no place in this discussion, there is a thread for those discussions at http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=55&t=4566

/Marcus

[wm]

To be quite correct, before Barbarossa mortality in the Warsaw Ghetto was 23.5 per thousand. The provincial ghettos were frequently better because less watched.
Mortality among those who escaped to the USSR is estimated at 26.
Mortality among multitude of those unfortunate to be deported to Siberia or Russia's southern republics is estimated at 59.

In both countries mortality was high and both were murdering people "artificially" - only the Holocaust was unique.

Mortality in pre-war Poland was 14 per thousand.

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi lgb,

You write, "If the harvest is not brought in, you don't get to eat anything."

It rather depends who "you" are. The Germans were in a position to ensure that if there were a food shortage in the areas under their control, they would be the last to suffer. The seem to have preferred to export food from already starving areas (i.e. Greece or the Ukraine) to protect their own population.

In this Hitler was driven by memories of the long term destabilizing effects of the British blockade of Germany in WWI, which was dictating its land strategy by 1917-18 and brought it to its knees in 1918-19.

Cheers,

Sid.

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi wm,

I do not know whether your figures are accurate or not due to lack of sources.

However, it should be noted that if the Warsaw Ghetto (which included no agricultural land) had been forced to live only off the ration the Germans allocated, the death rate would have been massively higher, and eventually total. Only the complete dissolution of their personal assets and ingenuity made a (barely) living level of nutrition possible for most residents into 1941-42.

In the Ukraine the Nazis appear to have put control of the population and political requirements ahead of nutritional requirements, because they preferred to keep the inefficient collective farms operating rather than return the land to more entrepreneurial peasant owner-occupiers, who they would have dispossessed anyway in the search for lebensraum for German settlers, had they won the war.

Cheers,

Sid.

[little grey rabbit]

he Germans were in a position to ensure that if there were a food shortage in the areas under their control, they would be the last to suffer. The seem to have preferred to export food from already starving areas (i.e. Greece or the Ukraine) to protect their own population.

Naturally - very few British officers starved to death in the Bengal famine.

My point is that in Ukraine at least there was a temporary severe food shortage in the winter 1941-1942 as a result of disrupted production and deliberate sabotage or evacuation of food resources by the Soviets - and they were quite open and boastful at the time about their attempts to sabotage agricultural production.

The original source conflates this period of scarcity that was forced on the Germans with the later export of food when the conditions that had imposed the scarcity had been partially alleviated.

I am sure you would agree that isn't good scholarship.

[David Thompson]

little grey rabbit -- you wrote:

The original source conflates this period of scarcity that was forced on the Germans with the later export of food when the conditions that had imposed the scarcity had been partially alleviated.

I am sure you would agree that isn't good scholarship.

Indeed. But, if you're talking about the "original source" I quoted, referred to in cerdic's linked post (at http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 8#p1844688), that letter was written on 23 May 1941 -- before Germany invaded the USSR, so there's no conflation with subsequent events.

Also, when there's only so much food in the harvest and you seize it (unlike the situation in Bengal which has been exhaustively discussed in other threads), you can't claim the resulting famine situation "was forced on" you. The Germans -- not the Ukrainians or Russians or Soviets -- had the obligation of feeding their own troops.

wm -- If you have any sources for your information, I'm sure our readers would be grateful if you provided it. Please don't neglect this aspect of your future posts here.

[wm]

However, it should be noted that if the Warsaw Ghetto (which included no agricultural land) had been forced to live only off the ration the Germans allocated, the death rate would have been massively higher, and eventually total. Only the complete dissolution of their personal assets and ingenuity made a (barely) living level of nutrition possible for most residents into 1941-42.

That's correct.

That was true for the other side of the wall too, but that "ghetto" was too big for that as long as the war was going on, and the Nazis seems never even thought about it.

average deaths monthly in the Warsaw Ghetto.jpg (13.61 KiB) Viewed 992 times

source: The Warsaw Ghetto: A Guide to the Perished City, second edition by Barbara Engelking-Boni, Jacek Leociak

I added the green line - pre-war average deaths monthly in a population of that size.

[David Thompson]

Thanks for that source, wm. Now let's get back to the German-occupied USSR.

[little grey rabbit]

Indeed. But, if you're talking about the "original source" I quoted, referred to in cerdic's linked post (at viewtopic.php?p=1844688#p1844688), that letter was written on 23 May 1941 -- before Germany invaded the USSR, so there's no conflation with subsequent events.

No, I was talking about the quote which began this thread which conflated the situation in 1941/1942 with figures for food exports in 1943.

Perhaps someone could enlighten me as to the purported significance of the May 1941 as the concept of food surplus and food deficit areas is fundamental to the modern international economy. Does anyone really think the Netherlands can feed itself? With the blockade the normal grain surpluses that might have arrived from the US and the Dominions to Scandinavia and Western Europe were diverted for the exclusive benefit of the UK. The Germans then had the responsibility to try and make good these shortfalls.

Fiends that we are, we still seem to be extracting grain from the Ukraine:
http://www.porttechnology.org/news/blac ... _in_odessa

[wm]

Does anyone really think the Netherlands can feed itself? With the blockade the normal grain surpluses that might have arrived from the US and the Dominions to Scandinavia and Western Europe were diverted for the exclusive benefit of the UK.

I do

Using numbers from the Statistical Yearbook of the League of Nations, available calories in '39 Netherlands per person per day, selected domestic products:

wheat: 448
barely: 164
rye: 647
oats: 554
potatoes: 732
fish: 173
sugar: 267
total: 2985

In Poland it was at least 5600 calories per day per person (this is a very low end estimation because only a few main agricultural product are included). There was no reason the European USSR should be worse.

The Germans then had the responsibility to try and make good these shortfalls.

I see nothing in the Hague Conventions about it...

[LWD]

...

The Germans then had the responsibility to try and make good these shortfalls.

I see nothing in the Hague Conventions about it...

That suggest that you haven't read them very closely. Here's a link:
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/hague04.asp
See section III of the Appendixes.