Morgenthau Plan - Food Policy

Food Policy

Germany was closed to relief shipments until December 1945. The given reasons were that they might tend to negate the policy of restricting the German standard of living. CARE package shipments to individuals remained prohibited until 5 June 1946. US troops and their families were also under orders to destroy their own excess food rather than letting German families have access to it.

In 1945 the German Red Cross, which during the war became thoroughly Nazified, and its head Ernst Grawitz was a major figure in medical experiments on Jews and "enemies of the state", was dissolved, and the International Red Cross and other international relief agencies were kept from helping ethnic Germans through strict controls on supplies and on travel. The few agencies permitted to operate within Germany, such as the indigenous Caritas Verband, were not allowed to use imported supplies. When the Vatican attempted to transmit food supplies from Chile to German infants the U.S. State Department forbade it.

In early October 1945 the UK government privately acknowledged in a cabinet meeting that, German civilian adult death rates had risen to four times the pre-war levels and death rates amongst the German children had risen by 10 times the pre-war levels. In early 1946 U.S. President Harry S. Truman finally bowed to pressure from Senators, Congress and public to allow foreign relief organization to enter Germany in order to review the food situation. In mid-1946 non-German relief organizations were finally permitted to help starving German children. During 1946 the average German adult received less than 1,500 calories a day. 2,000 calories was then considered the minimum an individual can endure on for a limited period of time with reasonable health. At this time food rationing was still strict in the UK and France and there were food shortages right across Europe. Bread rationing was first introduced to the UK in 1946 and potato rationing in 1947; these measures had not been in place during the war and partly reflect the need for food to be sent to the British and French zones of occupation. However later research has revealed that the bread rationing in the UK was not necessary, it was in fact "not primarily for economic reasons – in order to save wheat – but for psychological and political reasons" as a political ploy in order to get US support in reconstruction funds and US wheat. Rationing did not reduce the level of food consumption in the UK. In fact, the UK rationing let the UK "retain its privileged position as the only food importing country which did not suffer a significant reduction in calorie consumption." The Germans in the UK zone were receiving half the UK ration.