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AbstractThis article examines the subject of German women and the home front during the Second World War. It examines three key themes, which together encompass many of the main aspects of life on the home front for German women during the Second World War. First, it addresses daily life, including food and consumption - the availability of foodstuffs, rationing and its impact, as well as the way in which women contended with food shortages by turning to the black market and ‘hamstering’. Second, it examines women and work during the war. It considers women’s voluntary work for the German war effort and the half-hearted endeavours of the Nazi regime to call women up for obligatory service. Third, it discusses how women coped with the impact of the war, in particular, the Allied bombing in the cities, evacuation of children to the countryside and the destruction of their homes. It addresses the end of the war, when the home front and the war front merged, as enemy forces invaded Germany.Keywords Second World War; home front; women; Germany; daily life; rationing; black market; work; war; bombing; evacuation.German Women and the Home Front in the Second World War: Daily Life, Work and the Impact of WarLisa PineThis article examines the subject of German women and the home front during the Second World War. It begins with a short historiographical survey to place the subject in its context within the secondary literature. It then examines three key themes, which together encompass many of the main aspects of life on the home front for German women during the Second World War. First, it addresses daily life, including food and consumption - the availability of foodstuffs, rationing and its impact, as well as the way in which women contended with food shortages by turning to the black market and ‘hamstering’. It discusses clothing and shortages of material. It treats the subject of Nazi propaganda and education initiatives aimed at women during the war - such as the ‘campaign against waste’, how to cook appetising dishes with limited foodstuffs, how to collect herbs and leaves and their uses. Second, it examines women and work during the war. It considers women’s voluntary work for the German war effort and the half-hearted endeavours of the Nazi regime to call women up for obligatory service. Third, this article discusses how women coped with the impact of the war, in particular, the Allied bombing in the cities, evacuation of children to the countryside and the destruction of their homes. This section also addresses the end of the war, when the home front and the war front merged, as enemy forces invaded Germany. A consideration of these aspects of life on the home front illustrates the impact of the Second World War upon German women's lives and suggests that the experience of the Second World War was especially arduous for women. Many women had to manage farms and businesses on their own, without adequate labour help, whilst at the same time bringing up their children, which placed a double burden upon them. State intervention into home life also created much resentment among working-class and lower middle-class women in particular. However, there was not a singular experience that applied to all German women and it is necessary to understand the variety of circumstances in which German women found themselves. In addition to presenting an analysis of daily life and the home front in Germany, it is hoped that this article stimulates and encourages more geographical comparisons or individual case studies on the subject of women in the Second World War on the home front.Historiographical SurveyNazi Germany is the subject of a vast and ever-growing secondary literature. Within this, the subject of women came into view in the late 1970s and early 1980s as a result of Jill Stephenson’s pioneering books on women in society and in the Nazi women’s organisations. Since then, the literature on women in Nazi Germany has advanced greatly, through the publication of a number of important studies. During the 1990s, the focus of research shifted into the areas of pronatalism and family policy. Important works have also examined the impact of Nazi eugenic policies, leading to a debate about women as victims of National Socialism; and more recently to research, by scholars such as Vandana Joshi and Elizabeth Harvey, which show women as active participants in National Socialism. Women were indeed both victims and perpetrators of the Nazi regime. In addition, a large literature has developed on the experiences of Jewish women and the Holocaust. This is an important and growing part of the historiography of the Third Reich, but Jewish women are not the focus here, as most of them - apart from those who went into hiding or who escaped - were deported from Germany to the death camps in Poland. This article treats the subject of ordinary German women – housewives and mothers who had to carry on their daily lives during the war – and the experiences they faced. Stephenson’s more recent book on the home front in Württemberg has contributed important new research to the development of this field. Most recently, Nicole Kramer has used a variety of sources and ‘a subjective approach’ to ‘shed new light on the structures of German wartime society’. She has examined both female activism on the home front and the interaction between women and the Nazi welfare organisations. Daily lifeThe availability of foodstuffs and the impact of rationing were of great significance to German housewives. Even before the outbreak of war, ‘guns before butter’ - Goering’s slogan for the Four Year Plan - meant that food shortages were already present from the mid-1930s onwards. For example, by the winter of 1936-7, shopkeepers sold butter only to their regular customers. The quality of butter and cheese declined, and there was an increase in the use of inferior vegetable fats to create new fat compounds. Eating patterns changed. For example, fish consumption increased by 40 per cent between 1932 and 1938, whilst the consumption of imported fruit decreased by one-eighth during the same period. White cabbage and potatoes became increasingly important components of the German diet, whilst consumption of meat correspondingly decreased.Even before the outbreak of war, the rationing of some provisions was introduced in August 1939 and a more comprehensive rationing system was introduced in September 1939. As the war progressed, many goods became scarce or unobtainable, and the German diet was greatly restricted in both size and variety. Demands on the productivity of German farmers became greater and greater. By the winter of 1941-2, farmers were struggling to produce enough potatoes and pork. There were shortages in potato supplies to the cities, reported in Frankfurt am Main, Berlin and Cologne. Whilst farmers had managed to maintain a good grain harvest until 1943, feeding the civilian population and the military, as well as all the foreign workers, placed huge demands on German agriculture. In 1942, bread, meat and fat rations all had to be cut, and then cut again in May 1943. The ration cuts were accepted with grumbles and complaints, but accepted nevertheless.As Lizzie Collingham notes: ‘By 1943-44, an ordinary German civilian was eating 40 per cent less fat, 60 per cent less meat and 20 per cent less bread than in 1939.’ As rationing became more widely applied, everyone was supposed to make the same sacrifices for the nation, although pregnant and nursing mothers, as well as workers in heavy industry, and of course soldiers, did get more provisions, and not surprisingly, Jews, foreign workers and prisoners of war fared worst. Even so, miners and workers in war industries clamoured for increased rations. As German farmers were overstretched in terms of supplying the food needed, Germany looked to its occupied territories to make up for the food deficit, with Goering insisting that hunger should be exported outside the Reich. Minister for Food and Agriculture, Herbert Backe, was architect of what was known as the Hunger Plan, that was designed to extract as much as possible out of the occupied territories.The Nazi regime managed to produce enough food to provide an adequate civilian ration (much better than during the First World War overall). The aim of the regime was to distribute a limited amount of food across the population without losing the loyalty of the working class in particular. But the greatest difficulty faced by German farmers was a shortage of labour, especially during the war. Men were conscripted and farmers’ wives and daughters had to work hard to keep the farms going. The regime, however, did not have to mobilise the general population including non-farming women to fill the agricultural labour shortage, as was the case in Britain, but imported labour from its occupied territories in the east. In 1944, Rudolf Peukert, an official in the Reich Food Corporation stated that ‘without the employment of hundreds of thousands of foreign workers it would have been impossible to maintain German agricultural production at its present level’. Many women engaged in hoarding and black market activities, in order to supplement their rations. Stephenson has noted that ‘hoarding and bartering became punishable offences, along with profiteering, black marketeering and the illegal slaughter of livestock’. Harsh new penalties were introduced for those caught handling stolen goods, including the use of capital punishment for the theft of poultry and other livestock. But a black market did burgeon nevertheless. Many small farmers, who had in any case felt let down by the regime’s overall policies towards them, retreated into their own form of self-sufficiency, producing what they needed for themselves and their families, and not producing surplus food for the state. They put any extra they produced on to the black market for higher prices, despite the draconian laws introduced by the regime to prevent this. In terms of the meat market, farmers sometimes simply did not register livestock or slaughterers weighed carcasses without heads, so that weight of the heads could be kept back in meat for black market sales. Special courts to prosecute black marketeering dealt most commonly with charges of illegal slaughter. Richard Grunberger has described how ‘the black market became… an integral aspect of wartime consumption’, including on the part of Party and state officials. Shopkeepers engaged in under-the-counter activities, popularly known as ‘stoop transactions’. An illicit trading in coffee flourished almost from the very start of the war with the introduction of very strict coffee rationing. Black market coffee fetched exorbitant prices. However, it was difficult to proceed with prosecutions for black marketeering, as not only did the government lack the manpower to monitor such activities comprehensively, but also the regime did not want to flaunt the disreputable behaviour of party members and other officials in public. Those who were convicted of black market offences received a custody sentence in prison; second or third time offenders could find themselves sent to concentration camps.In addition, urban women bought and hoarded up non-perishable items for use in bartering, for example, exchanging soap products for food from farmers. They exchanged children’s toys and table linen for potatoes, milk, vegetables or fruit. Collingham notes that ‘the growth of a black market of barter in Germany indicated the seriousness of food shortages within the industrial cities’. Urban women made ‘hamstering trips’ by train from the cities to the countryside to look for food or to exchange goods for food. They also kept ‘war gardens’ to supplement their rations, producing a small but very important amount of extra vegetables. Furthermore, it was a strain in general for working women to have to stand in queues for shopping at the end of the day after work and this generated some complaints, especially as the amounts and types of food available became scarcer. A report from Stuttgart in September 1941 noted that: ‘the first women came as early as 5 o’clock in the morning to queue up. They were mostly industrial workers who were hoping to get their supplies before they went to work, because they would not be able to get anything after the day’s work.’ This type of situation was not uncommon. Women in the cities were anxious about where the next meal would come from, the long and tiring food queues and the allied bombing campaigns. Collingham also notes that: ‘Working women, who could only go shopping after work, arrived in the evenings to find empty shelves, and there was much resentment that shopkeepers held back the best foodstuffs under the counter for their wealthiest customers.’ Berliners were so short of vegetables that they used nettles and sugar beet leaves in their cooking and women made ersatz meatballs out of potatoes, turnips, lentils and white cabbage when meat was unavailable. Yet in the countryside, there was plenty of food throughout the wartime period, even in 1944-5 when food shortages had become acute in the cities and towns. As Collingham states: ‘Those who lived through the war in rural areas, or had friends or relations living in these circumstances, were always able to eat enough, and quite often enjoyed good food.’ During the war, the more affluent members of German society could take advantage of a loophole in the rationing system by eating out at restaurants, such as Horchers in Berlin, where expensive items such as poultry, game and fish were on the menu.Similarly to food, clothing was rationed too. Women also engaged in bartering and ‘hamstering’ in regard to clothes and material. There was a great shortage of material and women had to mend old clothes. Small squares of material could be purchased for this purpose. As the war drew on, shortages of clothes and shoes became greater and greater. ‘Mend well – darn well’ was a prominent campaign mounted by the state and its women’s organisations. From March 1942 onwards, clothing stamps were issued for the purchase of mourning clothes. Despite this measure, women were urged instead simply to add black crepe material to existing clothes rather than to buy new outfits for funerals. Any available clothing material was designated to the dispossessed victims of air raids. Women cut clothes out of old military uniforms, formed knitting needles out of bicycle spokes and made yarn out of potato sacks.As clothing supplies dwindled with each additional ration card, rationing offices reported ‘intolerable scenes’. By the end of 1943, women described their clothing cards and clothing patterns, five of which were crammed onto one thin piece of paper, as completely worthless. By that time, socks, underwear and woolen items, which were desperately needed with the weather so cold, were almost non-existent. In protest, some women donated their clothing ration cards to the state’s paper recycling collections. Before long, the editor of one of the major Nazi newspapers saw through such gestures, and asked if women were making fun of the collection drive by contributing something that was of no value to them.Tips for ‘making do’ and ‘making new’ proliferated as the Nazi government urged women to rework their old clothing into something wearable. There was a complete lack of any kind of sewing goods, such as thread and elastic. Women were also angered by the fact that magazines, all of which had been state-controlled for years, were still showing breathtaking fashions and shoes that were only available for export, while they were piecing together some form of clothing for their families from worn tablecloths, horse blankets and curtains. Yet the regime sought to maintain a fashionable countenance and its illusions of plenty throughout the war years, despite increasing scarcities. Despite disastrous losses in the Soviet Union, almost daily bombing raids on the home front, and severe shortages in clothing, shoes and textiles, Goebbels allowed magazines to continue publishing photographs of stylish fashions. Advertisements for consumer goods such as cosmetics, stockings, leather purses and ready-to-wear clothing, all of which had long been unavailable, were regularly published. However, there were notices inserted in them stating ‘delayed delivery’, as well as helpful hints on making the products last longer, or claims that they were so concentrated that only the smallest amount was needed.Nazi propaganda and educational initiatives directed at women during the war included: the ‘campaign against waste’, how to cook appetising dishes with limited foodstuffs, how to collect herbs and leaves and their uses. In particular, the regime utilised agencies of its two women’s organisations, the Reichsmütterdienst (National Mothers’ Service), which was part of the Deutsches Frauenwerk (German Women’s Enterprise) and the Volkswirtschaft/Hauswirtschaft (National Economy/Home Economy), which was part of the NS-Frauenschaft (National Socialist Women’s Group), in order to educate women about which provisions to buy and how to cook frugal meals in times of national shortage. Housewives were responsible for making sure that their families were getting healthy nourishment, even with the limited availability of many foodstuffs. The National Economy/Home Economy division promoted the consumption of Quark (a dairy product made from milk left over from the butter making process), dark bread and fish. It was able to mount large campaigns to disseminate its position to German housewives and shoppers. It suggested weekly and monthly menus that reflected the availability of foodstuffs. As Nancy Reagin has shown, ‘these menus and lists were then printed in newspapers and magazines, publicised on radio programs, posted in factory floors and marketplaces, and inserted in female workers’ pay envelopes’. In addition, the National Economy/Home Economy had 148 advice centres for housewives, which advised women on issues such as recycling, how to use ersatz products and how to preserve foods. The centres had all different types of educational material on view, in the windows, in display cases, on tables and on the walls. Books on display treated topics including the economy, agriculture, home economy, nutrition and cookery, household management, gardening and health. The centres also had educational films on topics such as ‘All Kinds of Things from Quark’, ‘German Grain in the Household’, ‘Preservation of Fruit and Vegetables’ and ‘The Preparation of Fish’.Reagin shows that the Nazi regime ‘linked housewives’ private consumption patterns to patriotism and the national interest’. During the war, propaganda was intensified as housewives were stigmatised as ‘selfish’ if they failed to take into account ‘the good of the nation’. Housewives were encouraged to support the war effort by purchasing only foodstuffs that were readily available, to conserve food and to avoid waste. Failure to help the war effort in this way was a signifier of dishonourable behaviour. German women were instructed on the use of ersatz or substitute products. Cooking instructions aimed to show how meals without meat were not only satisfying, but also cheaper and healthier. Women were urged to grow their own fruit, to forage for herbs and to preserve fruits in the winter months. During the war, children were encouraged to gather wild plants, such as rosehips and dandelions for ‘German teas’. Even beechnuts, stinging nettles and carnation roots came to have a use. Herbal teas from wild forest plants became more common and coffee substitutes included a malt coffee and a beverage made from oats.Women and Work during the WarDuring the Second World War, the home front was geared to war production in an unprecedented way. As Leila Rupp has noted: ‘Total war called for total participation.’ As fathers and sons were conscripted into the armed services, women were encouraged back into the workforce to replace them. Gertrud Scholtz-Klink, leader of the NS-Frauenschaft wrote that: ‘Our men at the front do their duty in the face of death – we women at home, with the same unflinching courage, go in whatever direction the Führer indicates.’ This contradicted earlier policies, which had encouraged women to give up work and to prioritise their roles as ‘mothers of the nation’. Hitler was concerned about keeping up popular morale on the home front and therefore much consideration went into when and how German women were going to be obliged to work for the war effort. At the start of the war, the government had given generous income supplements to women whose husbands had been called up, and women who had left their jobs were not necessarily inclined to go back to work. Hence, the number of women employed in Germany actually fell between 1939 and 1941, and in 1942 was still lower than in the pre-war period.The intelligence reports gathered by the Sicherheitsdienst (SD or Security Service of the SS) about public opinion, give some indication of this response. Reports from the cities of Leipzig, Dresden and Dortmund in 1941 showed very little noticeable success in getting German women to volunteer for work. In some reports it is mentioned that: ‘the population expects women from the higher levels of society to show a good example. Available information, they say, shows that [those who have taken on work] are almost exclusively women in humble circumstances, while often women from more favourable circumstances produce a multitude of reasons which prevent them from working.’ This created some questioning about how fair and true the ‘national community’ was, if German working-class women had to work whilst those of the middle and especially upper classes appeared able to evade work duties.Even before compulsory work was introduced, women were expected to engage in voluntary work that aided and supported the war effort. They had to extend their domestic obligations to take on roles outside the home to help the ‘national community’ in its time of dire need. The Nazi women’s organisations employed millions of German women, mainly as volunteers to take part in work such as air raid protection schemes, sewing for the Wehrmacht and distributing food, water and clothing to people affected by the air raids. They also assisted with evacuations, running service points to provide accommodation, help with baggage, care for the elderly, pregnant women and those with young children. In particular, Kramer has shown how Nazi organisations mobilised ‘a large number of married women in their thirties, forties and fifties’ for the war effort.Women were eventually called up for wartime labour service comparatively late, in January 1943. This created a double burden for women, both in industrial and urban areas and in the countryside, as women had to undertake work in the cities or run their farms, as well as to continue their familial and household duties. The call up of women to war work was inconsistent, however, and they benefited from the import of some 7 million foreign labourers, which allowed the opportunity for many German women to evade work duties. As Matthew Stibbe has noted, attempts by the Nazi regime to cajole more married women and housewives into the labour market during the Second World War were ‘contradictory, half-hearted and largely unsuccessful’. In addition, sanctions against women who failed to comply with the call up to work were inconsistently applied. Again, the forced labour of millions of foreign workers was significant in this respect. As they, along with prisoners of war and concentration camp inmates worked increasingly hard for the German war effort towards the end of the war, German women were presented with opportunities to evade labour service.The Impact of War The government distributed gas masks to German civilians in the summer of 1939. From 1940 onwards, women who were wealthy enough to do so, moved to south German resorts with smart hotels that were at first unaffected by rationing and safe from bombing. Hotel owners used their black market contacts in order to obtain luxury goods to meet their customers’ requirements. Other women who feared the bombing of cities in the north and west of the country migrated to safer rural areas even before the mass government-sponsored evacuations in 1942. From 1942 onwards, in particular, enemy bombing inflicted tremendous damage and terror on the German civilian population. The RAF had bombed German cities from as early as 1940, but the use of large phosphorous incendiary bombs in 1942 brought with it a significant change in the scale and the impact of air raids. Starting with the raid on Lübeck in March 1942, both the frequency and the severity of Allied bombings increased. By December 1942, almost one million mothers and children had been evacuated from German cities to the countryside. Evacuation was intended to protect non-combatants who were not involved in essential war industries and services, although many women working in the cities had to remain. Evacuation brought its own difficulties - many women from urban areas found life in small villages hard to adapt to, without any of the amenities to which they were accustomed. There were new social conflicts and also often a lack of empathy between urban and rural women, as the latter had families of their own to support and often resented the extra burden placed upon them of looking after tired and hungry migrants from the urban areas.In the summer of 1943, Hamburg endured a relentless ten-day air raid in which 34,000 people or more were killed and more than a quarter of a million homes were completely destroyed. A German mother of four from Hamburg recalled her terrifying experiences from that time: ‘The bombs fall continuously. The house shakes, through the concrete floor of the cellar you sense that the earth is moving…. Another massive impact, now the light goes out. Delivered pitilessly into the darkness and gloom, we are now waiting for the end.’ From 1943 onwards, the southern cities also became targets for Allied bombing campaigns, with heavy raids on both Munich and Stuttgart, especially in 1944. In February 1945, British and American bombers pounded the city of Dresden with high explosives and incendiaries.Whilst the application of censorship and the use of propaganda could conceal the nationwide extent of the bombing and strengthen hatred towards the enemy, they could not hide the increasingly difficult and desperate situations faced by German civilians in their daily lives. Nazi propaganda failed to match up with reality and increasingly came to be called into question. Women had to cope with their water and gas supplies being cut or, worse still, their homes being destroyed. Air raids disrupted normal life and millions became homeless. Survivors tried to continue with normal life. Employers complained about poor productivity or absenteeism on the part of female workers, but these were difficult times. Women's daily lives were dangerous, demanding them to be ‘both mindless and brave’. There was much solidarity amongst women, who found themselves in similarly desperate situations. Female relatives helped each other with their work, shopping and with looking after children. In the absence of relatives, women turned to female colleagues, friends and neighbours for help and support. Networks of support among women were widespread and provided much-needed mutual relief. Many families were made homeless and dispossessed. Children were evacuated from the German cities to the countryside and families were separated in the process. Fighting ended at different times in different places at the end of the war, due to Hitler's insistence that the Germans defend every last town and village of the land. There was to be no ‘disgraceful’ surrender. Most obeyed, not only or necessarily out of loyalty to Hitler and his regime, but mainly due to a fear of retribution by the Red Army in response to the Nazi atrocities and annihilation policies in the East. Sheer terror of the Soviet hordes inspired the German people to hold out and fight to the bitter end. The structure of Hitler’s ‘charismatic rule’ continued even when Hitler’s popular appeal had waned. There was a sense that the fate of the people was inextricably bound up with that of their Führer. As Ian Kerhsaw points out: ‘It was the loyalty of those who had burnt their boats together and now had no way out.’ By this time, remaining civilian men had been drafted into the Volkssturm (home army) - an organisation comprising some six million men - in a last ditch attempt to defend the fatherland. The Hitler Youth also played its part in anti-aircraft activities and eventually in the final defence of Berlin. Kershaw clearly describes the hardships endured by the German people during these months, as the home front and the war front merged together. Nicholas Stargardt notes that the Nazi regime ‘was able to expend and exhaust all the moral and physical reserves of German society’. With the collapse of the Nazi regime, the population was left at the mercy of the occupying troops. Foreign troops, including those of the Western allies, regarded Germany's women as part of the spoils of war. They stole, robbed and raped women. The soldiers of the Red Army perpetrated mass rapes in eastern Germany – the estimated number of rape victims ranges from tens of thousands to two million. In East Prussia, as Kershaw notes: ‘The rape of women, young and old, often many times over – a mass phenomenon and act of revenge through inflicting maximum humiliation on the defeated male population by the degradation of their wives and families – was a terrible hallmark of the first encounter with the Soviet conquerors.’ This was partly motivated by revenge for the atrocities inflicted on Soviet citizens by the German forces. Red Army soldiers and commanders were unrestrained in their conquest of Germany, avenging the actions of the Germans. Kershaw notes that fear provided ‘the prime motivator to hold out and fight on in the east’. The civilian population was effectively helpless. ConclusionWhilst there are many common themes here that characterised the circumstances of German women on the home front during the Second World War, it is significant to note that there was not a singular experience that applied to all German women. There were disparities in women's experiences during the war in relation to a number of factors: class; marital status; location. Differences on the home front were to be discerned between women of different classes. Working-class women certainly bore the brunt of war work, whilst women from the middle and upper classes found this easier to evade. They also found it easier to circumvent other restrictions to their lives imposed by the war in regard to food provision. Differences in age and marital status also had an impact on women's working lives during the war. Finally, their location played a significant part in their circumstances. There were different experiences for those women who lived in the cities compared to those who lived in the countryside; as well as for those women who lived in the western part of the country compared to those who lived in eastern Germany.Yet, the Nazi regime and the Second World War had some significant commonalities of impact on German women too. Thrift, autarky and rationing during the war were all designed to organise housewives ‘from above’ for the benefit of the Nazi state, which sought to change consumer demand to fit with supply. Nazi propaganda consistently linked women’s frugal use of available foodstuffs to the national interest. The overall impact of the Nazi regime was to suppress consumption and to deny many Germans the foods they would have selected had choice been available. In the pursuit of their military goals, Nazi organisations mounted far-reaching campaigns that relied on every possible means of propaganda and education, in an attempt to reach deep into ordinary German housewives’ consumption decisions. Under National Socialism, housewives had to work harder to put what they often considered to be less desirable food on their tables. Propaganda directed towards the German housewife, as well as educational instruction and demonstrations about how to prepare ersatz foods or mend clothes or preserve fruits, were very much part of everyday life in wartime Nazi Germany.On the home front, the experience of the Second World War was especially arduous for women. The conscription of millions of men into the armed forces distorted the balance of the civilian population; and millions of women, both in the cities and the countryside, became obliged to fill the gap left by conscripted men. This placed intolerable burdens on many women who had to manage farms and businesses on their own, without adequate labour help, whilst at the same time bringing up their children. Furthermore, the intervention of the state into home life created much resentment among working-class and lower middle-class women, especially when rumours circulated that better off women, in particular the wives of senior party officials or mayors were able to evade most of the wartime restrictions.The war brought with it the short supply of food and clothing, as well as the destruction of utility supplies and people’s homes. These problems were worse in urban areas than in the countryside, but the aim everywhere was simply ‘to get through’. Some German women formed relationships with enemy soldiers, in particular American ones, granting them sexual favours in return for luxury items such as chocolate, cigarettes or silk stockings. By the last months of the war, with utilities and communications severely disrupted, and the country invaded by enemy forces, simply surviving was a struggle. Millions of women had to be self-reliant, as almost 4 million men had died in battle and millions more were prisoners of war in 1945. Lack of food and sleep brought emaciation and chronic exhaustion to many women who had to work as rubble clearers or in semi-skilled and unskilled jobs and who often gave up their food for their children. Women had to be resourceful and to improvise, as they were forced to prepare meals with few ingredients and sometimes without energy supplies. The search for food included foraging expeditions and resort to the black market. By the end of the war, some two-fifths of the German population was displaced and dispossessed. In addition, there was a tremendous housing shortage as about one quarter of all homes had been destroyed in the war. In the cities, over 50 per cent of housing had been devastated. In the aftermath of the war, food rations continued to be meagre and shortages were still severe, especially in the winter of 1946-7. A Berlin woman recalled the situation: ‘During the war we were bombed, but had assurances of getting food supplies; when the war ended, there were no more bombing raids, but there was also nothing to eat.’ The burden faced by most women as they carried out their daily work became increasingly complex and difficult. It was exacerbated by the scant opportunity they had to recover their strength through eating and sleeping. The vast scale of destruction, misery and displacement caused by the war was especially onerous on German women. Termed the Trümmerfrauen (rubble women), they picked up the pieces of the destroyed German cities at the end of the Second World War. Towards the end of the war and in its immediate aftermath, millions of dispossessed and homeless women had to eke out a precarious existence and to try to rebuild their shattered lives. ................
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