Nazi Hunger Politics: A History of Food in the Third Reich

by Gesine Gerhard

Overview

During World War II, millions of Soviet soldiers in German captivity died of hunger and starvation. Their fate was not the unexpected consequence of a war that took longer than anticipated. It was the calculated strategy of a small group of economic planners around Herbert Backe, the second Reich Minister for Food and Agriculture. The mass murder of Soviet soldiers and civilians by Nazi food policy has not yet received much attention, but this book is about to change that.

Food played a central political role for the Nazi regime and served as the foundation of a racial ideology that justified the murder of millions of Jews, prisoners of war, and Slavs. This book is the first to vividly and comprehensively address the topic of food during the Third Reich. It examines the economics of food production and consumption in Nazi Germany, as well as its use as a justification for war and as a tool for genocide. Offering another perspective on the Nazi regime’s desire for domination, Gesine Gerhard sheds light on an often-overlooked part of their scheme and brings into focus the very important role food played in the course of the Second World War.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781442227255
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	09/01/2015
Series:	Rowman & Littlefield Studies in Food and Gastronomy
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	200
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Gesine Gerhard is professor of History at the University of Pacific in Stockton, California. She has published on agricultural and food policy, the Nazi era, and environmental history in many academic journals.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1: Food in Nazi Ideology
Chapter 2: Eating at Home: Food Rationing and the Nazi Diet
Chapter 3: Herbert Backe at the Center of Food Politics
Chapter 4: Operation Barbarossa and the Starvation of the Soviet Union
Chapter 5: The Science of Food
Chapter 6: The Hunger Years after the War (1945-48)
Epilogue

Editorial Reviews

Food has been a vital part of war since time immemorial, from early biblical sieges to the Hunger Blockade of November 1918 and the later Soviet and Chinese mass starvation of millions. Decades ago, the noted historian C. Paul Vincent, in Politics of Hunger (CH, May'86), concluded that the withholding or interruption of the availability of foodstuffs had become a basic political weapon of modern warfare, against both foreign enemies and vulnerable internal minorities. By WW II, food policy in Germany was as important as the manufacture of arms and fell to the hard-liner Herbert Backe, a failed academic who ingratiated himself in R. Walther Darré’s Reich Ministry for Food and Agriculture. As a wartime intimate of Hitler and Goering, Backe played a major role in the allocation of food rations to the public, the mass murder of Soviet soldiers and civilians, and the use of food shortages as a justification for genocide. Indeed, in the very capable hands of historian Gerhard, this excellent volume, based on original diaries, interviews, and outstanding research, examines the use and misuse of food, which may indeed have been Nazi Germany’s justification for the war itself.

Summing Up: Highly recommended. All academic levels/libraries.

Choice Reviews

This is more than another book on the Third Reich. It regards the Third Reich through the lens of food and, thereby, gains new insights in the Nazis' efforts to build the 'German people' and fight their enemies.

Ernst Langthaler

Gerhard populates her entire book with such tidbits that astonish any unfamiliar with Germany history; even experts can learn something new by reading this book. Gerhard is a subject matter expert, and she has produced a short work that can be read fruitfully by general interest readers.

Agriculture and Human Values

Nazi Hunger Politics is a highly accessible and lucidly written study, and one which does great service by drawing together the findings of a large historiography concerning the regime’s food policies throughout its years in power. It underlines with great clarity the extent to which the Nazi regime’s desire to fill Germans’ stomachs – and maintain their morale – led to the systematic mass
starvation of millions of other Europeans during the Second World War – especially in the occupied Soviet and Polish territories.

Contemporary European History

Herbert Backe is hardly unknown in the pantheon of Nazi villains, but Gesine Gerhard’s clearly written account of German food and agricultural policy before, during, and after the Second World War uses his personal letters and diaries to reveal his considerable responsibility for the bizarre, brutal and ultimately brainless policy decisions that lost Germany the war. This is an important book for historians of rural Europe in the twentieth century and for anyone who still wonders why Hitler invaded the Soviet Union.

Paul Brassley

Food has been a vital part of war since time immemorial, from early biblical sieges to the Hunger Blockade of November 1918 and the later Soviet and Chinese mass starvation of millions. Decades ago, the noted historian C. Paul Vincent, in Politics of Hunger (CH, May'86), concluded that the withholding or interruption of the availability of foodstuffs had become a basic political weapon of modern warfare, against both foreign enemies and vulnerable internal minorities. By WW II, food policy in Germany was as important as the manufacture of arms and fell to the hard-liner Herbert Backe, a failed academic who ingratiated himself in R. Walther Darré’s Reich Ministry for Food and Agriculture. As a wartime intimate of Hitler and Goering, Backe played a major role in the allocation of food rations to the public, the mass murder of Soviet soldiers and civilians, and the use of food shortages as a justification for genocide. Indeed, in the very capable hands of historian Gerhard, this excellent volume, based on original diaries, interviews, and outstanding research, examines the use and misuse of food, which may indeed have been Nazi Germany’s justification for the war itself. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All academic levels/libraries.

Choice

Food has been a vital part of war since time immemorial, from early biblical sieges to the Hunger Blockade of November 1918 and the later Soviet and Chinese mass starvation of millions. Decades ago, the noted historian C. Paul Vincent, in Politics of Hunger (CH, May'86), concluded that the withholding or interruption of the availability of foodstuffs had become a basic political weapon of modern warfare, against both foreign enemies and vulnerable internal minorities. By WW II, food policy in Germany was as important as the manufacture of arms and fell to the hard-liner Herbert Backe, a failed academic who ingratiated himself in R. Walther Darré’s Reich Ministry for Food and Agriculture. As a wartime intimate of Hitler and Goering, Backe played a major role in the allocation of food rations to the public, the mass murder of Soviet soldiers and civilians, and the use of food shortages as a justification for genocide. Indeed, in the very capable hands of historian Gerhard, this excellent volume, based on original diaries, interviews, and outstanding research, examines the use and misuse of food, which may indeed have been Nazi Germany’s justification for the war itself.

Summing Up: Highly recommended. All academic levels/libraries.

CHOICE