Thread by @RudiGeerts

Food as a weapon of war - meet Herbert Backe
1/n
A coalition made of Nazi Germany and satellite states, amassed to almost 4 million men for the invasion of Russia. The question to which much attention was given during the preparation of the invasion was how to feed them all?

2/n Transporting food from Germany to the front-line was not an option when it came to a long-term operation such as the conquest of Russia, especially as the country lacked key transport infrastructure. The invading army had to requisition food from the locals and live off the

3/n land. This would inevitably lead to large-scale famine and the death of millions of civilians. But for an ideology fueled by a notion of racial inequality, the starving of millions of “inferior” Slavs and Jews represented no problem whatsoever. For implementing the necessary

4/n measures for the so-called Hunger Plan, Alfred Rosenberg, one of the leading ideologues of the Nazi Party, personally nominated one man whose subsequent actions would lead to the death of millions of Soviet citizens. Backe quickly became a fervent supporter of Hitler.

5/n When it was his turn to prove his zealotry, he wasted no time. Together with high Nazi officials such as Heinrich Himmler, Backe became responsible for conceiving one of the worst engineered famines in modern history. He introduced the Hunger Plan’s outline in December 1940,

6/n as soon as the planning for the invasion of the USSR was confirmed.
By 1941, a document estimating 20 - 30 million civilian deaths attributed to food shortages was delivered to Herman Goering for approval. Among the numerous victims were many Jews who were forced into ghettos

7/n where a strict diet and food rationing was easily enforced. A Jewish person would receive a daily ration of 420 calories, which is less than 20 percent of basic human needs. In the Warsaw ghetto, the ration was reduced to a mere 184 calories, making up to around 7.5 percent

8/n of daily needs. In addition, all Jews were banned from purchasing foodstuffs such as milk, eggs, meat, and butter. This strict policy aimed at starving millions of people was enforced rigorously on both the local population and prisoners of war. The ill-treatment of Soviet

9/9 captives largely relied on denying them food. Out of 5.7 million enemy soldiers captured, 3.3 million of them would die by 1945 as a direct result of malnourishment, starvation, and hunger-related disearses.

Colorisaton by John Cocker @Joecocker15