Evening star., 1942-05-24
Food, as Fundamental Weapon,
Should Decide Who Wins War
Germany Having Trouble With Supplies but
Experts Doubt She Can Be Starved
Into Submission
By John Lear,
By John Lear,
Wide World.

Food is the primal weapon in this war.
The opposing armies can fight only
where and when they have food. The
strategy of each of the combatants is to
deprive his foes of food. The people Of
the United States strive for a victory
that will give the average man the world
over a chance to eat more and better
food in that atmosphere of freedom
where food tastes best and builds the
healthiest, happiest men.
BY knowing how much food is where,
then, 1t should be possible to tell who
will win the war.
Guesses of all sorts have been made:
Germany is losing the war because Of
food.
Germany is not losing the war because
of food.
Best-informed experts state their
opinion this way:
Germany is having the most trouble
in making her victories stick because of
food.
Look over the map of Europe Where
Is the most persistent, the most violent.
the most damaging sabotage against the
Nazis?
In Greece, Yugoslavia. France and
parts Of Poland and Russia.
Those are the very places where
starvation is the worst, where men and
women have been deprived of food to
such an inhuman extent that what is
left of life is easy to give for liberty
even when liberty is death.
The Germans have Systematically
stripped these countries of their cattle,
grains and vegetables to feed the con-
quering troops and to enrich the dining
tables inside Germany
Food as q Bribe.
Hitler could use food as a bribe to
these half suppressed peoples He could
tell them they might eat If they would
be friends. But that would mean the
Germans themselves would get less Of
the loot, that Germans might go hungry.
And one Of Hitler's basic tenets is that
Germans shall not go hungry.
The World War was lost because Of
hunger. he says. Families of German
soldiers wrote to the men at the front
and complained about not having enough
to eat. The armies lost heart and
through loss Of heart they lost battles.
Food Stored Since 1888.
No responsible person WHO has come
out of Germany since the opening of the
war believes that the Reich will be
starved out" for at least several more
years. Food reserves were piled up and
stored away steadily from 1888, the year
Hitler came to power, until Poland was
invaded in 1899. While Germans were
being given less to eat, the entire agri-
culture Of their country was being re-
organized to produce more food. From q
land which imported a large part of its
living needs, Germany in six years
changed to country which produced
IS per cent of all the food it consumed
AS the war progressed, Germany added
more and more fertile acres to its pro-
duction machine. AS territory was seized.
farms were taken from poor peasants
and amalgamated into state-controlled
combines, with kinds and amounts of
crops dictated in advance from Berlin
Farming regions Of occupied countries
France, Poland, Creece-were split of
from regions dependent on them, so
that the food might be taken to Ger
many more easily. Pure-bred cattle in
Belgium, Holland, Denmark were slaugh-
tered for the German market Fish and
dairy products were plundered from
Norway. Even neutral Spain and the
Axis ally, Italy. have been bied of food.
Germans Eat Sparingly.
All this may have helped to keep Hit
Ter in power in Germany. He promised
the German people prosperity. something
they have not seen since 1914. He had
to show them what looked like prosperity
and to show them that it came from
military victories.
Yet Germans do not get much to eat.
Their daily meals are tightly rationed.
Meat and eggs are very scarce. So are
vegetables. Milk goes only to children.
Butter is almost unknown. But the diet
is enough to keep the people alive and
healthy, and it is kept down chiefly in
order to conserve existing reserves
against unforeseen emergencies.