Young people

1. Young people All sections of the community were encouraged to take part in the war effort. Members of the Hitler Youth carried out a variety of tasks, including collecting metal, farm work, clothing and books as part of recycling campaigns. They also did some work on farms and carried out fund raisers to support the troops on the Eastern Front. Although much of the work done by the BDM (League of Young Maidens there were some key differences. They worked in hospitals and helped care for the wounded, they worked in day care centwrs and kindergartens. They assisted mothers with large families. They also worked at railway stations where they provided a little cheer, served coffee and food, and mailed letters to men departing for the front. Fearing bombing, children were evacuated from major cities such as Berlin in September 1940 but many soon returned. ‘ Task A Describe how the lives of young people were affected by the war.

2. Hygene Clothes rationing was introduced in November 1939. there was a complicated points system. Some items such as new shoes and winter coats were almost impossible to buy. Hot water was only permitted on two days of the week and soap was rationed. One newspaper advised that soap was not necessary for a bath and suggested that the liquid from stewed pine needles could be used instead. Stewed and strained ivy leaves were recommended for washing clothes. Toilet paper was not available. Tobacco was difficult to find. Many people were so desperate to find it that tobacco became a kind of substitute for money. Farmers would trade one egg for a cigarette. The first year of the war went well for Germany and Germany conquered many other countries. As this happened huge stocks of luxury goods such as dresses, stockings, fur, gold and perfumes were imported from these countries. People could buy them on the black market for the right price but most of the goods went to loyal or high ranking Nazis. Task B Describe how the lives of young people were affected by the war.

3. Diet Owing to the success of the early war efforts there were few food shortages and each victory abroad brought new supplies of raw materials. As a result of careful rationing two out of five Germans ate better than they did before the war. However, their diet became increasingly monotonous. BEFORE May of 1942: civilian rations in Germany were:• 10,600 grams of bread = 353.33 grams/day or 12.5 oz• 2000 grams of general food stuffs / 66.66 grams per day or 2.3 oz.• 900 grams of sugar = 1.06 oz. per day Breakfast (Frühstück) typically included some type of bread: sliced bread, toast, and/or bread rolls with jam, marmalade, honey, and/or butter. Butter was substituted with margarine during the war. Citrus products would have been unavailable - so marmalade would have disappeared from the retail markets. Lunch: Mittagessen The biggest meal would have been lunch. In wartime Germany, stews would have been popular because limited meat could have been eked out with thick sauces and vegetables. A relatively simple meal (from a Culinary perspective) could have been made with Spaetzle noodles topped with a cream sauce. With cream being unavailable, a housewife could have used thickened condensed milk - perhaps with grated cheese. Dinner: Abendessen or Abendbrotwas a smaller meal. It typically included bread with meat, sausage, cheese, and/or a vegetable. Sandwiches or open faced sandwiches would have been common, though bread with margarine, sliced cheese, and sliced sausage would also have been eaten. The advent of the war saw the development of various imitation food products. Margarine replaced butter. Overcooked rice mashed into patties and cooked in mutton fat became "ersatz meat." Rice patties mixed with onions and oil reserved from tinned fish became "ersatz fish." Flour for bread was stretched using ground horse chestnuts, pea meal, potato meal, and barley. Salad spreads were made using chopped herbs mixed with salt and red wine vinegar. Cooked nettles and goat’s rue were mixed as spinach substitutes or were used to eke out soups. Task C Describe how and why diet changed in wartime Germany IN NO LESS THAN FOUR SENTENCES

4. Every week, groups of Hitler Youth, one week boys and the next week girls, go from house to house to collect waste from the ‘Raw Materials Saving Boxes’, empty food cans, tinfoil, and old newspapers. With handbarrows they march to the outskirts of towns and villages and pick over dump heaps for old pots, kitchen ranges, rusty buckets and bed frames.’ Source A, Heinrich Hauser recalls life in Germany in 1940 in his book Hitler versus Germany: A Survey of Present Day Germany From the Inside. In the subway you smell the people. There is niot enough time nor enough coaches for coaches to be properly cleaned and ventilated every day, so the odour of stale sweat from bodies that work hard and have only a cube of soap as big as a penny box of matches to wash with for a month, lingers in the interiors. In the summer it is asphyxiating... Dozens of people, whose stomachs and bodies are not strong anyhow, faint in them every day. Source B, the observations of an American radio reporter, Howard K. Smith, in 1941. • Task D • For each of the sources above complete the following tasks: • What does it suggest about the impact of the war on the life of German citizens? (and how) • How reliable is this source? • 2) Which of these sources is most useful to a historian investigating the impact of the early years of the war on German citizens? Source C, Germans relax at a street cafe in Berlin, 1940