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Germany 5.2 - The Homefront During The War - Coggle Diagram
Germany 5.2 - The Homefront During The War
Evacuation
Plans were made for children to be evacuated from major cities of population.
Originally many families did not want to send away their children.
Around 2.5 million German children were evacuated as part of the KLV programme.
As allied bombing attacks increased from 1942 mass evacuation began with children being sent into rural areas.
The children stayed in one of the 9,000 camps supervised by the Hitler Youth leaders and teachers.
Rationing
The first rationing began in August 1939, including bread, meat, dairy products, soap and from November, clothing.
Food stamps were issued to civilians and they had to exchanged in order to buy food.
If someone stole food stamps they would typically be sentenced to work in a forced labour camp.
When eating in restaurants you had to pay in both money and with food stamps to cover the amount of food ordered.
Rationing allowed people to maintain a basic level of nutrition, however there were many shortages of items.
Early in the war goods were shipped back from occupied countries but by May 1942 there were so many shortages that the government cut rations.
Anything could be bought on the black market for an extremely inflated price.
Near the end of the war, Germans in the east fled from the Soviet army to the west.
They found many cities destroyed by Allied bombing and with serious food shortages. Their arrival added to the problem and in some areas there was starvation for the last months of the war.
Total War
In June 1941 Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa - the invasion of the Soviet Union.
At first they advanced rapidly until temperatures dropped in late November and the Germans came to a halt.
The Soviet forces adopted a scorched earth policy as they retreated leaving the Germans with no supplies and caught in a prolonged battle where over 2 million Germans died.
Germany was placed under great strain and until the failure of Operation Barbarossa it was expected the war would be over in a couple years.
In Feb 1943 Goebbels told the German people that everything had to be given up in order to win the war and they had now entered total war.
One of the issues Germany faced was the growing shortage of factory labour.
In the early years of the war, prisoners from occupied countries were taken to Germany to act as slave labour. By 1944 7 million prisoners of war worked for German industry.
From Jan 1943 all men aged 16-65 and women aged 17-45 had to register as available for work.
Small businesses not aiding the war were closed and employees were either taken into the army or transferred to war work.
However there were many exemptions for women working as Hitler did not believe in married women working.
In Aug 1944 there was a ban on holiday for workers and the work week was adjusted to 60 hours.
By 1943 the labour shortage became so serious Hitler had to allow women to help the war effort.
Other measure were taken to help fight Germany's total war such as:
professional sports teams and places of entertainment (other than cinemas) were shut down.
postal services were reduced to save fuel.
The Volkssturm (Home Gaurd) was forced to help protect Germany from invasion and by the end of the war boys from 12 were being forced tp join.
The Effects of Allied Bombing
From Aug 1940 the British RAF carried out bombing attacks on German cities.
They started with attacking military and industrial targets but quickly realised with didn't have much effect of German production.
They then started bombing civilian areas in order to bring down morale.
Between March and July 1943, 43 cities were bombed.
The raids on Hamburg in the summer of 1943 killed 42,600 German civilians and forced another 1 million to flee the city.
The government tried to reduce the impact by telling stories of bravery and determination. It also set up welfare organisations to help those whose homes had been destroyed.
Despite the propaganda there was definite large negative impacts on the morale of the German people.
Most people still tried to carry on with their normal lives.
From 1944 the Allies became more strategic and focused on railway lines, bridges and motorways. However German war production was only reduced by the bombing raids by about 1%.
However it did impact things such as metal production by 40% and had a huge impact on the transportation of goods.
The Changing Role of Women
The Nazi government strongly suggested women to stay at home and raise their families.
Although some women had to return to work to aid the rearmament process, there were still less women working in 1939 than in 1929.
During the war many men left work in order to fight leaving shortage for work in factories.
Hitler's opposition towards women meant that the number of female workers in industry dropped from 1939 to 1941 despite the need for them.
In June 1942 Goering ordered women who had previously worked and were without children should register again as industry couldn't cope without them.
When total war was introduced half a million extra women were working in industry.
By the end of the war women made up 60% of Germany's labour force, and they also played a role as auxiliaries in the army.
There was also a huge psychological impact from the war on women.
They lived in constant fear that their husbands or sons had been killed in the war, and they struggled to raise families alone.
Many were killed in bombings or made homeless.
The threat of the Soviet army raping women also plagued their mind and many committed suicide to avoid it.