report44Lorenz6380 .pdf

To FEEDTHE HUNGRY:

GERMAN

-AMERICANS, THETRUMANADMINISTRATION

ANDTHEEUROPEANFOODCRISIS

ine days after the capitulation of

German troops in Europe, the New York

Times ran the headline: "Starvation in Reich

is put up to U.S."¹ In a press conference in

Paris, Lieutenant General Lucius D. Clay

warned that the food supply in postwar

Germany was "going to be a very tight

squeeze" until next year's harvest was in.

Given the situation it would be up to the

"American Congress and the American

people" to decide "how close to starvation

the German people... may be allowed to

come" before food would be shipped from

the United States. "I would not say the

policy on this has been decided," concluded

Clay.² His remarks proved to be propheticindecision

and confusion turned out to be

exactly the problem with regard to the food

supply for Germany. It would take President

Truman until February 1946 to face the

reality of a critical shortage of food in

Germany and the world at large. Even then

his response barely solved the food

shortage the world was facing between the

summer of 1945 and the summer of 1946.

Although perilous in many countries,

the food shortage was especially critical in

Germany. The country was thoroughly devastated

by the war it had decided to fight.

Successful agriculture in Germany was

threatened by a shortage of all necessary

material, from seeds and manpower to agricultural

machinery. For obvious political

reasons Germany was excluded from the

help the United Nations Relief Agency

(UNRA) was supplying to other countries,

including Italy. Moreover, until the United

States changed its policy towards Germany

in the fall of 1946, the army, under governmental

guidelines, was ordered to keep

rations at a minimum level and to strictly

limit imports.

The focus in the following paragraphs

will be on the American response to the

massive shortage of food in Europe and the

American occupation zone in Germany in

particular. The first part will adumbrate the

seriousness of the crisis in Germany and

Europe. The second part will briefly analyze

the Truman administration's food policy in

1945 as well as public reaction to that policy.

Congress and the Truman administration

differed on the appropriate response to the

food crisis, and the public at large defended a

variety of opinions on the issue as well.

German Americans were naturally concerned

about the crisis in their old homeland,

a fact much reflected in German-language

newspapers published in the United

States at the time. Yet the reaction of other

Americans, both to the crisis itself as well as

to agitation for prompt relief on the part of

German-Americans, varied. The third part

will look at how successful German

Americans were in their efforts and show

how in the end a combination of events contributed

to the opening of some relief channels

to Germany.

PART

I: THE WORLD FOOD CRISIS

The disruptions and devastation of the

Second World War affected the world's

agricultural regions to an unparalleled

extent.³ Asia, which had been largely selfsufficient

before the war, became dependent

on imports from the Western Hemisphere.

The same held true for Europe. Food production

in the western half of the continent

was considerably lower than before the war.

The eastern regions, which were now under

To Feed the Hungry______________

Soviet control, produced a surplus but no

longer shipped their agricultural products

westward. Instead, the countries in Eastern

Europe and in the Balkans supplied the

Soviet Union with urgently needed grain.

Many regions of the world were no longer

able to supply themselves. A few countries

were in a position to remedy this shortage,

among them the United States, Canada,

Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, and a

few Latin American countries. Of course,

each country had a varying quantity of food

available to ship abroad, and not all these

countries were willing to supply assistance

to the needy.

The Food and Agriculture Organization

of the United Nations (FAO), established

in the spring of 1945, estimated that

European production of food for 1946-1947

would supply 2,100 calories per day per

person.4 These figures were considerably

lower than the prewar level of 2,750 for

continental Europe and close to what the

FAO's panel of experts had established to be

an "emergency caloric intake requirement."

The availability of this recommended emergency

ration of 1,900 calories would differ

widely between rural and urban areas. To

achieve a safe level of consumption

throughout a country, the FAO experts recommended

2,500 calories a day. This level

would support an individual at just above

subsistence level. The FAO's estimates for

available autochthonous calories in Europe

for 1945-1946 showed that most of the

European countries were seriously affected

by the shortage of available food with the

exception of Denmark, Sweden, and to

some extent, Switzerland.5 In most countries

caloric consumption ranged from 2,100

to 2,600 calories.

To alleviate the shortage and to provide a

balanced diet was not an easy task in post-

war Europe. A healthy diet relies not only

on starchy food but also on a balanced

intake of animal products, fruits, and vegetables.

Because meat production requires a

large amount of grains, which in times of

crisis can be put to more efficient use by

being directly supplied to the people, meat

production in Europe-and, due to other circumstances,

also imports from the United

States-remained low for years to come. The

same held true for egg and poultry production

while the fishing industry was hampered

by the problem of providing refrigeration

for its rapidly deteriorating product en

route. Sugar, a high energy food, also

remained in extremely low supply between

1945 and 1948 because, despite a rise in the

European output of beet sugar, worldwide

sugar production fell during these years.6

The true meaning of these mere figures

was human suffering. Serious malnutrition

lowers the population's resistance to dangerous

diseases such as tuberculosis. It

impairs the ability of the people to perform

hard physical or mental work which, in the

immediate post-war period, presented the

concomitant danger of slowing down

European economic reconstruction. It especially

endangers the less fortunate and less

aggressive parts of the population; the poor,

the elderly, and children.

Although the people in most European

countries were suffering from malnutrition,

the former enemy countries and Spain were

the most seriously affected. The FAO study

found that in all these countries local consumption

was below 2,100 calories. As the

next section will demonstrate, concrete figures

for Germany were actually considerably

lower than the FAO estimated

Crisis in Germany: When United States

troops moved into Germany in 1944-45,

they did not know much about the food sit-

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uation in the former German Reich.

Original directives contained in the Joint

Chief of Staff Document 1067 (JCS 1067)

advised the army to "estimate requirements

of supplies necessary to prevent starvation

or widespread diseases... as they would endanger

the occupying force."7 Consumption

was to be held to a minimum so that imports

could be "strictly limited." The army was

also ordered to take no action "that would

tend to support basic living standards in

Germany on a higher level than that existing

in any one of the neighboring United

Nations." Few of these orders turned out to

be realistic in the long run.

Soon after the army moved in, experts

of its civilian arm, the US Group Control

Council (USGCC), began to work on educated

guesses concerning the food situation. It

could do no better because the greater

number of major and minor German officials

had decided to go into hiding or to

retreat with the German army.8 Even in his

first report as Military Governor of

Germany issued in July, Lucius Clay did not

describe the situation in a favorable light:

"The food situation throughout Western

Germany is perhaps the most serious problem

of the occupation," he states. "The average

food consumption in the Western Zones is

now about one third below the generally

accepted subsistence level of 2,000 calories

per day per person."9 The report outlined

that the average supply to the civilian population

in urban areas amounted to 1,000 to

1,400 calories per person with a zonal average

of 1,150 calories. Caloric intakes were a little

higher in the countryside. Rations were also

higher (3,000 to 3,400) for coal-miners in the

Ruhr to support an emergency program to

keep the essential mining operations going.

The early reports from July and August

estimated that the results from the

incoming harvest would be favorable,

reaching nearly 95% of the 1944 level. Even

under these conditions, the July report stated,

"the Western Zones ... are food-deficit

areas to the extent that food must be imported

if starvation conditions and a general

breakdown of health are to be avoided."10

In the months thereafter conditions

proved even more serious than previously

estimated. In October the report of the

Military Government found that "previous

estimates of food production had been too

high, and consequently that Germany's

paramount economic problem-that of supplying

its own food-is even more pressing

than had been anticipated."11 Food rations at

the end of October stood at 1,250 calories per

person after the initial intentions of the

Military government to supply 1,300 calories

could not be met from the available

local supply.

Conditions worsened in November.

The Military Government completed a thorough

survey of the available crop which

brought "into sharper focus the reality that

the Germans will not be able to subsist

healthfully through 1946."12 The results

from the harvest of 1945 had been seriously

overestimated, and the survey showed it to

be considerably lower than the 1939-1944

average. The survey gave rise to bleak forecasts.

"[I]ndigenous production in the US

Zone from 1 November 1945 through 30

September 1946," the report stated, "would

provide the normal consumer with an average

of 938 calories. The FAO had found that this

was a daily food intake considerably

below the minimum one recommended by

doctors, a fact which "emphasizes the seriousness

of the food situation in Germany."13

Even with the already authorized limited

food imports from the United States the

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To Feed the Hungry______________

caloric intake would not climb higher than

1,100 calories.

The rapidly shrinking food supply,

which was only to be replenished by limited

imports, made the prospect for the coming

winter a gloomy one. The Military

Government had done as much as it could to

fully utilize all German resources to supply

adequate foodstuffs. Any additional supply

would have to come from one of the few

countries which had a surplus-the United

States. The low food supply not only raised

questions of humanitarian concern but

threatened to endanger the occupation force

in several respects. Diseases and food riots

would be hard to control. Economic reconstruction

would be slowed down. And in the

long run starvation could turn the populace

against the occupation forces, thereby

endangering the prospects for establishing a

democratic German state.

PART

II: DOMESTIC RESPONSES, SUMMER AND FALL

1945

The Administration: it was clear to many

that the food situation abroad was serious. As

Herbert Hoover, former president and

renowned World War I food expert, put it

during a radio interview in May of 1945: "it is

now 11:59 on the starvation clock."14 But in the

United States the Department of Agriculture

and many food experts had been concerned

with a different problem: abundance of food.

Conditioned by the trauma of the Depression,

promises of imminent military victory, and

rising agricultural production, the majority of

experts on the panel of the War Food

Administration (WFA) feared the returning

surpluses of the postwar era. In the last half of

1944, the WFA took steps to relax rationing

controls, so that Americans could eat up the

threatening food stocks. It drew up production

plans that retreated from the policy of

expanding farm

production. And, it stopped the stockpiling of

emergency supplies.15

In March of 1945 it became apparent

that the current food policy was heading in the

wrong direction. Victory could take longer

than expected, serious meat shortages

plagued the big American cities, and the

reports from Europe did not sound

encouraging.16 Belatedly, the Department of

Agriculture confirmed these fears. A report

issued by its Office of Foreign Agricultural

Relations in May of 1947 stated that continental

Europe would need twelve Million

tons of imported food in the next fourteen

month but "[e]xcept for wheat, world supplies

of these commodities are far short of

demand."17 Soon Herbert Lehman, former

governor of New York and current head of

UNRA, joined Hoover in his warnings.

Lehman would be a tireless although not

very successful promoter of allocating help for

Europe.

Ironically, coordinated attacks against

the Truman administration's food policy

came not from the promoters of foreign

relief but from the opponents of the real or

perceived domestic shortage. The blame was

directed towards the Office of Price

Administration (OPA). At its height at V-E

day, the OPA was responsible for the

rationing of over eight million commodities

and had 73,000 employees all over the

country.18 After the war's end many

Americans felt that the OPA stood in the

way of realizing the American dream of indulging

in abundance. This view had actually

been fueled by government propaganda

during the war connecting the winning of the

war with the return of the right to consume.19

As soon as the war was over the OPA was on

the defensive, a position from which it could

not hold out for long.

__________________Lorenz-Meyer

The ensuing debate over the OPA had

important consequences for the food shortage

in Europe. Controlling the flow of food in

the United States meant that it was easier for

the government to send products overseas.

For example, the government could make

most of the grain produced available for

foreign relief rather than feeding it to hogs

to increase meat production. Without OPA,

the consumers' expectations of being able to

indulge in full-fledged consumerism meant

that it was less likely that much food would

left to be sent abroad. Moreover, without

price control the government would have to

pay more for relief food, as prices were

very likely to go up once the price ceilings

were lifted-as indeed they did once

rationing was abandoned.

During the fall of 1945 conditions in

Europe worsened considerably, and the

administration once again worried about

oversupply. Chief among those concerned

was Clinton P. Anderson, the new head of

the Department of Agriculture (USDA).

Truman had appointed Anderson, a congressman

from New Mexico and an outspoken

champion of consumer abundance, in

the hope of silencing the attacks Anderson

had launched in Congress against the

administration's food policy. Under

Anderson guidance, the USDA continued to

court the American consumer and soon the

self-styled "apostle of abundant production"

set out to dismantle the OPA structure as

rapidly as possible. In the aftermath of the

bumper harvest of 1945, restrictions had

already been eased considerably. Only meat

rationing and the related rationing of fats

and oil remained.

Chester Bowles, the administrator of

the OPA, warned Truman of the consequences

of dismantling the rationing system

entirely. At the beginning of November he

wrote the president that he was "deeply disturbed

about the food situation here and

abroad and its relationship to our present

program of rationing"20 He suggested a tenpercent

reduction of the amount of meat,

fats and oil available to the American consumer

which would still leave consumption

at a level considerably higher than any time

between 1936 and 1944. Such a program

"would enable us to still eat better than any

other people on earth." He believed that

Americans would support such a program

because they had indicated often their "willingness

to make any reasonable sacrifice ... if

the dietetic needs of our allies and even our

former enemies overseas are clearly outlined

to them." Truman forwarded Bowles' letter

to Anderson with the advice to consider it

carefully because, as he said "[a]s you

know, 1 am very much interested in preventing

the starvation of the people who

were our friends in the war."21 However,

Anderson ignored most of the issues it

raised, informed Truman of the ample supplies,

and recommended the end of meat

rationing. Truman decided to rely on the

judgment of his cabinet member. Anderson

was the expert on food and would decide in

his area of expertise. Without political backing

the entire rationing apparatus of the OPA

was dissolving rapidly. A reluctant Bowles

agreed to end meat rationing by the end of

November and soon all the remaining

programs except sugar rationing were abolished.

In a press conference given on the

occasion of the end of rationing, Anderson

assured the public that the United States

would still be able to meet its overseas commitments.

German American concerns: Yet, at the

same time, it was not only the members of

the administration who were reading the

reports about worsening conditions in

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To Feed the Hungry______________

Germany and Europe. During the months

after V-E day German American newspapers

reported frequently on the conditions

on the continent and the possible disaster to

come. Of these newspapers the New Yorker

Staatszeitung und Herold was the most

important. Published daily in New York

City the Staatszeitung was the oldest and

largest German American newspaper in the

United States. Indeed, it is still published

today.24 The paper provided a steady diet of

foreign and domestic news to the largest settlement

of German-born Americans in the

country. Foreign news was either provided

as translations of Associated Press reports

or came from its own correspondents, who

traveled with the army in Europe.

As soon as the war was over, the

Staatszeitung began publishing articles

which described the dire conditions in

Germany. One day after Lucius Clay had

given his press conference in Paris the

paper's main headline warned of

"Germany's gravest winter, Homelessness

and hunger threaten civilians."25 The article

pointed out that, according to allied military

officials, Germany had to expect the worst

winter in centuries and that United States

forces had tried their best to help stimulate

farming in Germany. In its Sunday edition

six day earlier the paper had already published

a large map showing estimated

rations for each country under the heading

of "the ghost of hunger threatens Europe."26

The accompanying article pointed out that

help for Germany could only be self-help

because UNRA first had to consider the

needy masses of all other countries which

had been plundered by the Nazis.27 A commentary

one week later warned again of the

"death through hunger" in Europe and

pointed out, albeit carefully, that Germany

also needed a certain degree of food relief.

Such step would be in the interests of the

occupying powers to keep the economy in

Germany going. Thus, the paper was happy

to report one month later that Allied high

officials had indicated that Allied policy

would now support very limited imports to

Germany to alleviate dangers to the occupying

forces.28

Over the next few months the paper

would not alter its general line of reporting.

Many of the leading articles about Germany

alluded to the difficult food conditions in

the country.29 Reports by the allied authorities

in Germany in June, July, and early

August, which found food conditions to be

slowly improving, were normally placed

inconspicuously on the second or third

page.30 The fact that even those optimistic

reports had been premature and that conditions

worsened steadily into the fall was

faithfully reported in the paper at an everincreasing

pace. By November and early

December articles about dire conditions in

Germany and Europe filled the pages of the

Staatszeitung almost daily.31

In the face of famine conditions in

Europe, the paper clearly supported the end

of rationing in the United States. Already in a

commentary in May the editorial staff had

reminded its readers that all the food promised

to Europe still needed to be delivered.

To ensure these exports "the American public

has to be willing to carry on the restrictions

which it put on itself during times of war

for another year."32 Only then could the enemy

of democracy, world peace, and civil order be

defeated. When the end of meat and fat and

oil rationing was announced, the

Staatszeitung's commentator was not very

convinced of the merits of the measure:

"Already the notion of a wintry malnutrition

catastrophe in the countries across the

Atlantic ocean to which many millions of

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__________________Lorenz-Meyer

Americans are connected by ties of blood is

sufficient for every well-meaning person in

this country to regard the fact of the so surprisingly

announced end of the meat and

feat rationing only with mixed feelings."33

Despite these warnings the paper would

never go as far as to advocate the introduction

of new rationing measures.

As is apparent from the lines of the

Staatszeitung und Herold, after the end of

the summer of 1945 it became obvious to

even the most cursory of its readers that

conditions were continuously worsening in

Europe and Germany. The concerns of

German Americans translated into action on

two fronts. On the one hand, German

Americans tried to institute associations

which would organize the collection of

relief on the local level. Such associations,

however, could not be successful without

the means of shipping their relief supply

overseas. Thus, on the other hand, these

groups, aided by a large number of individuals,

approached political leaders to change

the American relief policy towards

Germany so that they could deliver their

supplies. Initially many of these attempts

ended in frustration, as the administration

was not very receptive. However, the general

food crisis which befell the world in early

1946 finally reinforced the message of the

German American lobbying effort and

brought about a change in American food

policies in Europe.

Initial response to the German food

problem was slow. Obviously it proved difficult

to translate individual concerns into

public action given the state of organization

of German Americans. When reports about

Germany first began to appear in the

Staatszeitung many readers seem to have

reacted by asking about the resumption of

mail and parcel service to Germany. Mail

delivery was not allowed to Germany

because it was an enemy territory under

army administration. The lack of postal

communications troubled many readers of

the Staatszeitung. On September fifth a

commentary stated that "in the last days the

number of letters from the circle of our

readers which complained about the lacking

renovation of postal communication with

Germany—although the arms have been

silent for four months—has increased

remarkably."34 In its answer to these complains

the paper cited mainly technical difficulties

for these delays. In the next month it

would keep its readers continuously

informed about developments in this regard

until finally, in March 1946, it could inform

its readership that a limited mail service

would be opened on the first of April.35

Parcel service followed in mid-June of

1946.

When the reports about the deteriorating

conditions in Germany first came in, it was

not possible to mail packages. Other forms

of supplying goods had to be found and

organized. The first efforts to start some kind

of relief operations for Germany were

undertaken by the National Council of the

Steuben Society of America, a society old

and patriotic enough to escape any suspicions

about the loyalty of its members to the

United States. On October tenth, Theo J.

Hoffmann wrote President Truman asking

for an appointment to discuss the question

of rendering assistance to people in

Germany and Austria.36 At the same time,

Hoffmann also approached Congressman

Ploesner in order that Ploesner might raise

the question of an appointment in his talk

with the president the next day, but neither

approach worked. The president's secretary,

Matthew J. Connelly, wrote back six days

later that his "request ... has been duly

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To Feed the Hungry______________

noted" but that "the President... is working

under tremendous pressure these days."

Emphasizing that the president did not

doubt the "loyalty, Americanism, and good

citizenship" of "Americans of Germanic

extraction," Connelly, as directed by the

uninformed president, referred the request

to UNRA for further help.37 But Hoffmann

was not prepared to give up. At the beginning

of November he again wrote to the

president asking for an appointment, pointing

out that "[r]equests are coming in daily to us

... from our members ... inquiring when

restrictions against help for the German

people will be lifted. Hoffmann noted that

"thousands of innocent women and

children in Germany and Austria are dying

daily while we procrastinate."38 Again

Truman would not to see him, but

Hoffmann did get some positive assurance

in a memo from the State Department that

relief operations were planned for some

time in the future.

Had he known the general opinion

Truman held on supplying relief to

Germany and Austria, Hoffmann would not

have been surprised by the denial of his

request. In a similar reply—this time in

answer to a request submitted by senator

Burton K. Wheeler (D, Montana)—Truman

wrote: "there is naturally a growing sentiment

in this country to feel sorry for the

people who caused all the bloodshed and

while I don't want to take the attitude of

being cruel and inhuman ... I think the

Germans brought on the war and ... should

pay the penalty."39 In December Truman

reminded Senator Albert W. Hawkes of

New Jersey that "[o]ur efforts have been

directed particularly toward taking care of

those who fought with us rather than against

us. ....[e]ventually the enemy countries will

be given some attention."40 This obvious

resistance at the top made it difficult for

German Americans to move forward successfully

with their attempts to supply private

relief to Germany.

Efforts got underway again in

November. Early that month the

Staatszeitung und Herold reported that

members of the German American War

Bond Committee had established an

"American Committee for the Relief of

German Children and the Needy, Inc." in

New York. Its members, mostly from New

York, were already preparing the establishment

of branches in Chicago, Milwaukee,

and Cleveland.41 Soon thereafter the founding

members of the temporary committee

traveled to Washington to inquire at the

State Department about opportunities to

ship private relief supply to Germany and

Austria. They found, as their temporary

chairman Hans A. Specht reported, some

encouragement to submit an application for

the official approval of their organization to

the "President's War Relief Control Board."

How quickly such application would be

approved, officials in Washington were not

able to say because "concerning relief

actions towards Germany the State

Department is guided by a certain policy set

by the government which is based on the

Potsdam treaty according to which

Germany has to supply itself."42 It turned

out that approval would not follow very

quickly at all.

On December seventh, the committee

reported that it was now legally incorporated

in the state of New York. But chairman

Specht reported that it did not yet have a

license to ship relief supplies to Germany,.

The next step, according to the

Staatszeitung und Herold, would be to submit

a resolution in Washington asking for

higher calorie allowances for German civil-

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ians, for the possibility of shipping relief

supplies to Germany privately through

American agencies, the opening of the mail

service, and the permission for Americans

to send relief supplies to Germans regardless

of political or religious affinities.

Approval was still not forthcoming. On

December twenty-eight at a meeting of the

President's War Relief Control Board the

committee's application for licensing had

been postponed as well as the application of

the Wisconsin-based American Relief for

Germany, Inc., another organization which

had been founded in the meantime.43

Apparently the applications of the two

organizations were not approved for several

reasons. On the one hand, private relief to

Germany met with technical difficulties.44 In

the destroyed country transportation was still

difficult, and a large percentage of what was

available in the way of transportation

facilities were being used by the army. The

same was true for the transoceanic shipping

of supplies. Further complications arose out

of the necessity of getting the consent of the

Allied Control Commission for the establishment

of such a service. Although the

Control Council was able to reach decisions

in some areas, negotiations on the question

of relief supplies were stalled due to French

and Russian opposition.

On the other hand, approval also needed

political backing, and that was apparently also

not forthcoming. First, most officials still

assumed that Secretary of Agriculture

Anderson was correct in his assurances of

an ample supply of wheat and other important

foodstuffs—an assumption which soon

proved false. Given the ample stockpiles, so

the reasoning went, emergency conditions

in Germany and elsewhere could be met if

they had to be. Secondly, political backing

for the two private, German American relief

organizations was also lacking because

Germany had until recently been an enemy

country which had inflicted great harm on

the United States and its Allies. JCS 1067

and the Potsdam treaty provided the relevant

guidelines and they called for self-help,

not for the import of food. Yet even early on

reports indicated that self-help alone was

not adequate and that some form of stepped-up

private and public assistance program

would be required. But success in that arena

would require at least a partial reversal of

governmental policy, which was a slow and

difficult process.

PART

III: DOMESTIC RESPONSES WINTER

1945 AND SPRING 1946

Beginning in December 1945 and gaining

strength in the following two months, incentives

to change governmental food policy

towards Germany and Europe came from

two sides. On the one hand, the Truman

administration found out, to its embarrassment,

that the positive predictions about the

available food supply in the United States

had grossly overstated the actual situation.

On the other hand, the administration came

under increasing political pressure from the

public and the Congress to change its

approach towards supplying relief to

Germany. The first problem was addressed

by founding the Famine Emergency

Committee, an organization under the honorary

chairmanship of former President and

food relief expert, Herbert Hoover. The

Famine Emergency Committee relied on

voluntary conservation measures and contributions

by the American public to raise

the food supply available for export. To

decrease the public pressure, the administration

decided finally in February of 1946 to

allow private relief organizations to ship

supplies collected in the United States over

to Germany—initially 2000 tons each

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To Feed the Hungry______________

month. These efforts were organized under

the guidance of the Council of Relief

Agencies Licensed for Operation in Germany

(CRALOG).45 The Council was joined

in June by the Cooperative for American

Remittance to Europe (CARE), which

allowed Americans to buy individual army

rations stored in Europe to be supplied to

German civilians.46

The Administration: Beginning in

late December the administration became

painfully aware that its forecasts of

European wheat supplies were grossly off

the mark. As Secretary of Agriculture

Anderson acknowledged in early January,

drought, shortages of seed and manpower,

and transportation problems increased

European requirements for wheat by twentyfive

to thirty percent. Yet, much more

disturbing for the administration was the

fact that the perceived overabundance of

wheat reserves in the United States had disappeared.

As a report by USDA officials at

the end of January made clear, with the end

of meat rationing nineteen million tons of

wheat had been fed to animals for meat production.

To meet the shortage of meat mostly

consumed in the United States, large wheat

stocks had been used, reducing stocks to 16.9

million, six million tons of which should

have been earmarked to fulfill outstanding

promises to Europe.47

At the end of January Anderson finally

admitted that a food crisis was at hand and

that the government would now have to take

quick measures to curtail domestic consumption

of wheat. On February 6, the president

informed the public of the food crisis

and ordered, using his remaining price control

authority, limitations of grain going to

industrial users and asked the public to save

grain. To further this end, on February 27,

Truman appointed the Famine Emergency

Committee to bring about the maximum

voluntary conservation of food like grain

and fat and oils. Standing above party lines,

many of the members of the Famine Emergency

Committee were leading executives

in the media and advertising business. This

was in fact, the policy motive behind the

committee: to sell to the public a media crusade

for voluntary food conversation. In the

next six weeks the committee distributed a

deluge of information to the public on how

to conserve food.

Despite high hopes neither measure

met much success. In April, United States'

stocks of wheat stood at nine million tons,

with half of it still on the farm. The country

did not meet its export goals to any

European country. Ration levels in the U.S.

zone in Germany had fallen from 1,500

calories in January and February to 1,275 in

April, with further reductions to 1,100

thereafter.48

What finally saved the European countries

from starvation were not the voluntary

measures to save food but the clear inducement

for farmers to sell their grain after the

government had decided—reluctantly—to

raise the price ceiling for grain. Chester

Bowles, now Stabilization Director, had

warned that raising prices contributed to

inflation. But starvation was clearly worse

than inflation. Initially, the farmers held

back their products, but in April, a price

increase of twenty-five-cents for corn and

fifteen-cents for wheat in combination with a

bonus, which had been announced earlier

but had proved insufficient initially, convinced

them to sell to the government. By

the end of June the government was finally

able to meet its earlier obligations to ship

over five million tons of cereal grain

abroad. The emergency situation of the food

crisis had been met, albeit not through vol-

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__________________Lorenz-Meyer

untary measures but by clear market incentives.

The resolution of the 1946 food crisis

did not necessarily raise global food stocks

above critical levels. Food would remain

scare for years to come. But in the next winter

the government was more appropriately

prepared and was able to meet the situation

with better advanced planning. In Germany,

as in other countries, the calorie supply

would never reach such a low level again.

German Americans and the Public: Just

as the administration began to realize that

the United States' food supply would fall

short of European requirements, it came

under increasing pressure to open channels

for private relief efforts to Germany. It is

significant that the first organizations to

supply relief goods to Germany were

licensed shortly after the government had

found out about the shortage in the United

States and the President had asked the public

to support the curtailing measures he

announced on February ninth. All these

measures were part of the administration's

effort to end the "season of drift," as

Bernstein and Matusow have called it.

In the months prior to the adminstration's

ultimate actions, criticism of the governmental

policy towards Germany had

been especially harsh. On January 29, 1946,

Senator Kenneth S. Wherry, Republican

from Nebraska, thundered in the Senate:

"The President knows perfectly well that an

imposed diet of 1,550 calories subjects any

people to mass starvation and the ravages of

disease and unrest. Mr. Truman has defied

not only American but world opinion by

refusing to yield to the heart-rendering pleas

for intercession and mercy that have come

from all over the globe. Thus, the issue

before us ... is a question of America's

honor, and the basic humanitarian impulse

of the American people, as to whether they

intend longer to submit to the browbeating

of a man, who no longer speaks for, or represents,

the American heart, mind, and conscience

in these matters."49 Wherry's calls to

open mail service and relief supply for

Germany did not find any dissenting voice

in that congressional session.

Such strong words should not have

been unexpected at the White House. The

House Economics Committee, under the

leadership of Representative Colmer (D,

Miss.), had visited Germany in November

and returned to criticize government policy

as one that would "require the elimination

of 8,000,000 to 10,000,000 Germans."50 On

December 15, 1945, thirty-four senators of

all parties sent a petition to Truman asking

him "as the Commander in Chief of our

armed forces to take immediate steps toward

relieving the appalling famine in Germany

and Austria." Stating further that "[w]e did

not fight the war to exterminate the German

people" they asked the President to raise

rations in the United States zone and to

allow "private relief organizations to start

operations in Germany and Austria."51

The petition of these senators was partially

a reaction to concerns about conditions

in Germany raised by Byron Price in a

report submitted to the president on

November ninth and released to the press on

November twenty-eight.52 "We must decide

whether we are going to permit starvation,

with attendant epidemics and disorder, in

the American Zone or ship food to prevent

it," Price wrote. His report was, in fact, only

the first of several which informed the public

about conditions in Germany. Church

organizations like the American Friends

Service Committee, the National Catholic

Welfare Council, and the Unitarian Service

—73—

To Feed the Hungry______________

Committee spoke out as well, and many of

their reports spoke of the starvation conditions

in Germany and especially of the children

and elderly affected by hunger. By

December and early January, many of these

reports were generally available; various

ones were cited in the senatorial debate in

January.

Political pressure on the senators was

also mounting from their constituents. At

the end of October, German American

newspapers began to carry appeals to write

to Congress to allow for the opening of

channels of communication with Germany.53

In response, a number of members of

Congress wrote to President Trumann

inquiring about the state of affairs in this

regard.54 In most cases the president's

replies were along the lines already cited

above. The longer the government stuck to

that response, the less credible its policy

became. After talking with the president in

January of 1946, Senator Wherry stated in

a press release that mail and package

services had been restored in and between

all four zones of Germany and for certain

individuals in Germany accredited to UNRA

and the Red Cross. It was the "German

people alone [who] are being denied the

change to ... receive aid from the outside

world."55 The president's replies to the

congressional letters also received some

criticism during the senatorial debate in

January.

Thus, public pressure to open some

channels for private relief to Germany was

mounting from all sides. German Americans

pressured their congressmen and senators to

bring the matter to the attention of the

administration. Incoming reports from

Germany painted conditions in an

unfavorable light. Slowly, the administration

was ready to change. On January fourth

Undersecretary of State Dean Acheson

wrote to Hassett, secretary to the president,

that on the question of relief shipment to

Germany the "body of public opinion ... in

the country is so strong ... that the

Department has receded from its previous

negative position, primarily for fear ... to

forestall the charitable instincts of the

American public."56 Still, it took the threat of

the world food crisis to push the government

towards a change of its position. Once the

existence of a food shortage was admitted, it

only seemed logical to allow German

Americans and other citizens of the United

States to contribute at least a little to the

relief of the plight overseas. Soon the

American Committee for the Relief of

German Children and the Needy, Inc. and

the American Relief for Germany, Inc. and

other German American relief committees

became affiliated with one of the twelve

organizations combined in the CRALOG

council and German American newspapers

began to carry the news from the "Relief

front" daily.57 German Americans finally

had at least one way to contribute to the

reconstruction of their ancestral lands

before the opening of the postal service

allowed for more forceful efforts.

PART

IV: CONCLUSION

The attempts of German Americans to open

some channels for the private relief of food

shortages in postwar Germany initially fell

on deaf ears within the Truman administration.

Despite the efforts of local organizations

to either address the national political

leadership directly or to go through local

politicians, the response of the government

was slow and indicated its uneasiness with

the issue. Internationally the United States

and its Occupation Forces were still bound

by the words of the Potsdam declaration,

and the Truman administration was still try-

—74—

__________________Lorenz-Meyer

ing to work out the differences with its ally,

the Soviet Union. In the long run the

Truman administration would turn its policy

around. From the spring of 1946 the United

States would seek to solve the German

problem by integrating it into the Western

community of states rather than by treating

it exclusively as a vanquished enemy.

In the final analysis two reasons

account for the difficulties German

Americans encountred in convincing the

administration of their demands. On the one

hand, many historians agree that President

Truman and his administration were often

ill-prepared and sometimes overwhelmed

by the many tasks arising at home and

abroad from the end of the war.58 In 1945-

46 policy decisions concerning occupied

Germany relied on a number of wrong

assumptions, ranging from fears of economic

recession to the belief that world agriculture

would recover quickly.59 The difficulties

which arose subsequently were compounded

by the fact that Truman, due both

to the circumstances which had catapulted

him into office and to his personal style in

office, frequently relied on his staff for

expert advice. Listing to Anderson but

ignoring others like Bowles, he chose to disregard

the warnings about the world food

crisis which had been building since the

summer of 1945. As long as supply was

supposedly sufficient to fulfill the letter if

not the spirit of JSC 1067 and prevent disease

and unrest, there was no apparent need

to allow relief shipments to Germany. Only

when the worsening signals coming in from

all sides could no longer be ignored, did the

administration adjust its policy.

Other reasons contributed to the difficulties

German Americans were having

with their demands as well. In the senatorial

debate in January it became apparent that

many senator thought that the president was

not distinguishing between participants in

the Nazi regime and the great number of

other people who lived in Germany and

needed help. The senators felt that their

government should not punish the innocent.

In comparison, Truman expressed the belief

that the two groups could not be separated

and thus any shipment to German civilians

was not worthwhile.

On the other hand, some of difficulties

which German Americans faced they could

only blame on themselves. Their own ethnic

organizations were reluctant to speak as a

group. As a consequence, German Americans

did not wield the political clout which,

as in every democracy, is the way to cudgel

leaders into action. Without political influence

their attempts were laborious but

unlikely to meet with much success. It

would ultimately take other events to bring

about a change.

— Martin Lorenz-Meyer

University of Kansas

—75—

—76—

New York Times, May 17, 1945.

Ibid.

The following description is based on Hal E. Wert,

"The Fat of the Land: Voluntary Food

Conservation Programs of the Truman

Administration, 1945-1948," (master's thesis,

University of Kansas, 1972), 1-29.

Report, "Urgent Food Problem," May 14, 1946,

FAO, quoted in ibid., 6-7.

"Report to the Director General," May 8, 1946,

FAO quoted in ibid, 9-10. Autochthonous

refers to possible production in the country.

Ibid., 15-22.

The part of the JSC 1067 related to Economic

Policy is printed in Department of State,

Occupation of Germany: Policy and Progress,

1945-46 (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1947), 155-

158.

Christoph Weisz, ed., OMGUS-Handbuch: Die

amerikanische Militäregierung in Deutschland

1945-1949 (München: Oldenbourg, 1994), I t -

23. The USGCC was consolidated into the

Office of Military Government for Germany

see ibid., 28.

Military Government of Germany: Monthly Report of

the Military Governor U.S. Zone, Number 1 (July

1945), 9. These reports were issued until the

United States decided to transfer the authority

of the Military Government to the office of the

High Commissioner for Germany in 1949.

Ibid.

Monthly Report of the Military Governor U.S.

Zone, Number 3 (October 1945), 9. (There was

no September report issued.)

Monthly Report of the Military Governor U.S.

Zone, Food and Agriculture, Number 4

(November 1945), 1. 13Ibid.

New York Times, May 17, 1945.

See, for this policy, Alien J. Matusow, Farm

Policies and Politics in the Truman Years

(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967),

3-5.

See also Meg Jacobs, '"How about Some Meat?':

The Office of Price Administration,

Consumption Politics, and State Building from

(US) (OMGUS) at the end of September 1945,

the Bottom Up, 1941-1946," Journal of

American History 84 (1997), 932.

New York Times, May 7, 1946.

Wert, "Fat of the Land," 33.

New York Times, May 7, 1946.

Wert, "Fat of the Land," 33.

Jacobs, "'How about Some Meat?'" 912.

Chester Bowles to the President, November 2,

1945, Folder (June 1945-1946), Official File

(OF) 174, Truman papers, Truman Library

(TL).

Memorandum for Clinton P. Anderson from the

President, November 5, 1945, ibid.

Harvey C. Mansfield, Historical Reports on War

Administration: Office of Price Administration,

vol. XV: A Short History of OPA (Washington:

GPO, 1947), 195; see also attachment to letter

from Truman to Dwight W. Morrow. December

14, 1945, Folder (1945-1946), OF 426, Truman

papers, TL; Wert, "Fat of the Land," 45-48;

Matusow, Farm Policies, 15-16.

Barton J. Bernstein, "The Postwar Famine and

Price Control, 1946," Agricultural History 38

(1964), 237.

The paper had been published continuously since

1834. Its circulation figures were for 1940:

48,000, for 1944: 27,596; for 1950: 25,840. In

the 1940s the editor of the paper was Victor F.

Richter. See Karl J. R. Arndt and May E.

Olson, History and Bibliography 1732-1968:

United States of America, vol. 1 of The

German Language Press of the Americas,

(München: Verlag Dokumentation, 1976),

399. The importance of the paper is also

underlined by the fact that Thomas Mann,

probably the best known German emigre,

choose the New Yorker Staatszeitung und

Herold to clarify his position about his return to

Germany. See New Yorker Staatszeitung und

Herold, October 18, 1945.

"Deutschland steht vor dem schlimmsten Winter,

Obdachlosigkeit und Hunger droht deutschem

Zivil," New Yorker Staatszeitung und Herold

(NYSH), May 18, 1945; A report about Clay's

press conference was not published because it

had been exclusively covered by the NY

Times.

NYSH,May 13, 1945.

"die Gefahr [einer Hungersnot] [könne]

Deutschland im wesentlichen nur durch eigene

NOTES

To Feed the Hungry, Notes__________

Anstrengungen barmen, da bei den UNRAAktionen

vor den notleidenden Deutschen erst

die bedürftigen Volksmassen in alien anderen,

bis vor kurzem von den Nazis ausgeplünderten

Ländern an die Reihe kommen würden,"

NYSH, May 13, 1945.

NYSH, June 23, 1945.

See, among others, "Munich is Hungry," June 2,

1945; "For Berlin Difficult Winter Lies

Ahead," June 11, 1945; "Good Harvest in

Reich is not Sufficient," July 24, 1945, NYSH.

See "Food conditions in Reich are to be Improved,"

June 26 1945; "More Calories for

Germans," July 7 1945, NYSH.

See, among many others, "Europe Needs Millions of

Tons of Food," September 17, 1945; "Berlin

Digs Graves for Starvation," September 18,

1945; "Misery in Europe Without Countermeasures,"

September 24, 1945; Hunger and

Bitter Cold Threatens Europe in This Winter,"

September 30, 1945; "Germany Before the

Winter of Hunger," October 7, 1945; "Quaker

Describe German Misery," November 2, 1945;

"The Frightful Ghost of Winter in the German

Reich," November 4, 1945; "Millions in

Germany are in Danger of Hunger," November

10, 1945; as the main headline: "Intervention

of the Army in Reich or Mass Starvation,

Quaker Appeal for U.S Help for German

Children," November 30, 1945; "Death Looms

for Thousands in Reich," December 21, 1945;

"The Saddest Christmas in Europe," December

25, 1945; NYSH.

"Das amerikanische Volk muß gewillt sein, die

Einschränkungen, die es sich in der Kriegszeit

auferlegte, noch für ein weiteres Jahr zu tragen,

wenn es nicht nach unserem militärischen

Sieg den weitaus gefährlichsten Feind der

Demokratie, des Weltfriedens und der bürgerlichen

Ordnung in Europa inthronisieren

will—den Massenhunger." NYSH, May 23,

1945.

"Schon die Vorstellung einer winterlichen

Ernährungskatastrophe in den Ländern jenseits

des Atlantischen Ozeans, mit denen viele

Millionen von Amerikanern durch Bande

desBlutes verbunden sind, genügt jedenfalls

für einen jeden gutartigen Menschen in

unserem Lande, die Tatsache des so überraschend

bekanntgegebenen Endes der

Fleisch- und Fettrationierung nur mit gemis-

chten Gefühlen aufzunehmen," NYSH,

November 26, 1945.

"In den letzten Tagen haben sich in auffallender

Weise Briefe aus dem Kreise unserer Leser

gemehrt in welchen Klage darüber geführt

wird, daß die Postverbindung mit Deutschland

noch nicht wiederhergestellt sei, obwohl die

Waffen bereits vier Monaten lang ruhen,"

NYSH, September 5, 1945.

NYSH, March 28, 1946.

In June Louis E. Alewel of the Steuben Society in St.

Louis had already, unsuccessfully, written to

the President asking for an appointment for Mr.

Hoffmann, see Alewel to Harry S. Truman, June

7, 1945; Alewel to Charles Ross, June 15, 1945;

Connelly to Alewel, June 20, 1945, Folder

(1945-1946), OF 426, Truman papers, TL.

As mentioned, UNRA did not supply in Germany.

"Memo to Mr. Connelly," October 11, 1945,

the President noted on the memo "not in favor

of it should go through UNRA;" Matthew J.

Connelly to Theo J. Hoffmann, October 16,

1945, Folder (1945-1946), OF 426, Truman

papers, TL. Unfortunately, the letter Hoffman

wrote to the president was not in the files; for

Hoffmann's attempts see also NYSH, November

7, 1945.

Theo J. Hoffmann to Matthew Connelly,

November 9, 1945; Connelly to Hoffmann,

December 11, 1945, Folder (1945-1946), OF

426, Truman papers, TL.

Harry [S.Truman] to Burt[on K. Wheeler], October 6,

1945, Folder Misc. (1945), OF 198, Truman

papers, TL.

Harry S. Truman to Senator Albert W. Hawkes,

December 21, 1945, Folder Misc. (1945), OF

198, Truman papers, TL.

November 9, 1945, NYSH. At the same time also

other organizations must have been formed.

Their existence, however, is difficult to establish.

One, at least existed in Milwaukee in the

beginning of November called "Committee for

Relief to Austria and Germany." A resolution

signed by "three thousand five hundred

Americans in mass meeting assembled" was

sent to the president on November 10, 1945.

The Milwaukee-Herald, the local German

American newspaper does not mention this

organization. For the telegram see Folder

(1945-1946), OF 426, Truman papers, TL.

—78—

"hinsichtlich der Hilfsaktion für Deutschland wird

das State Dept. von einer bestimmten Politik,

die die Regierung festsetzt, geleitet, und zwar

ganz besonders durch die Potsdamer

Vereinbarungen, nach der Deutschland allein

für sich sorgen muß," NYSH, November 16,

1945.

NYSH, December 28, 1945.

This was a point the government always made in

reply to requests to supply relief to Germany.

See, for example, Harry S. Truman to Senator

Albert W. Hawkes, December 21, 1945;

Matthew J. Connelly to Congressman

Lawrence H. Smith, November 27, 1945, both

in Folder Misc. (1945), OF 198, Truman

papers, TL.45Announcement of President

Truman, February 19, 1946, in Folder B

(CRALOG) OF 426, Truman papers, TL.

NYSH, May 11, June 6, 1946.

The following description combines Matusow,

Farm Policy, 17-37 and Wert, "The Fat of the

Land," 62-90; see also Bernstein, "The

Postwar Famine," 238-240.

Monthly Report of the Military Governor U.S.

Zone, Food and Agriculture, Number 8 (March

1946), 3; Monthly Report of the Military

Governor U.S. Zone, Number 9 (April 1945),

14; for rations in June see NYSH, June 9,

1946.

Congressional Record, 79th Congress, 2nd session,

1946, vol. 92, pt. 1:514,518.

Ibid., 512; see also NYSH, November 14, 1945. 51

Congressional Record, 79th Congress, 2nd session,

516; see also Milwaukee Herold, December 19,

1945.

Memorandum [the report] by Byron Price to the

President, November 9, 1945; Press release,

November 28, 1945, both in Folder (1945-

April 1950), OF 198, Truman papers, TL,

See, for example, Milwaukee-Herold, October 31,

1945.

Letter to the President by Representative William

Lemke, November 22, 1945 and Letter by

Lemke to Matthew J. Connelly, December 11,

1945, in Folder (1946), OF 198; Letter by

Representative Lawrence H. Smith to the

President, November 13, 1945; Letter by

Senator Milton R. Young to the President,

December 5, 1945; Letter by Senator Wheeler

to the President, December 11, 1945, Folder

(1945), OF 198, Truman papers, TL.

Congressional Record, 79th Congress, 2nd session,

518.

Memorandum for Mr. Hassett from Dean Acheson,

January 4, 1946, Folder (1945-1946), OF 426,

Truman papers, TL.

See NYSH, March 6, 1946; Milwaukee Herold,

March 5, 1946.

See, for example, Donald R. McCoy, The

Presidency of Harry S. Truman (Lawrence:

University Press of Kansas, 1984), 16-17;

Robert H. Ferrell, Harry S. Truman: A Life,

(Columbia: University of Missouri Press,

1994), 218-239; Matusow, Farm Policies, 3.

Harold F. Gosnell, Trumans's Crises: A Political

Biography of Harry S. Truman (Connecticut:

Greenwood Press, 1980), 257-258.

Lorenz-Meyer

—80—