Food and agriculture in Nazi Germany
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Food and agriculture in Nazi Germany describes the food and agricultural policies of Nazi Germany and their consequences from 1933 when the Nazis took power in Germany until 1945 when Germany was defeated in World War II (1939–1945) by the allied nations. Starvation and its associated illnesses killed about 20 million people in Europe and Asia during World War II, approximately the same as the number of soldiers killed in battle.[1] Most of the deaths from starvation in Europe were in the Soviet Union and Poland, countries invaded by Germany and occupied in whole or part during the war.
A central focus of Germany's war policy was overcoming chronic food deficits by conquering Poland and the fertile chernozem, or "black earth," region of Ukraine and neighboring republics of the Soviet Union, and expelling, starving, or killing the native populations. German farmers were to be resettled on the vacated lands, thus assuring Germany self-sufficiency in food and enabling Germany to take a secure place alongside the United Kingdom and the United States as a world power. As it worked out, Poland and Ukraine became only minor contributors of food to the civilian population of Germany, as more food came from western European countries such as France and Denmark. To maintain domestic agricultural production while millions of men were serving in the military, Germany imported millions of workers as forced labor.
The German state managed to keep its population reasonably well-nourished until at least autumn 1944,[2] but at the cost of killing or starving to death millions of non-Germans.