page_title: War against the potato beetle
section_title: The beetle
hierarchical_section_title: War against the potato beetle / The beetle
caption_attribution_description: Kartoffelkäfer, Colorado potato beetle, Verbreitung, distribution
context_page_description: The war against the potato beetle was a campaign launched in Warsaw Pact countries during the Cold War to eradicate the Colorado potato beetle. It was also a propaganda operation that alleged that the insect was introduced into East Germany, the People's Republic of Poland and Communist Czechoslovakia by the United States as a form of entomological warfare. Communist propaganda of the time claimed that the insect was being dropped from parachutes and balloons, with the intent of immiserating the populations of these countries, causing famines, and facilitating an economic crisis.
context_section_description: The Colorado potato beetle, also known as the "ten striped spearman", is a common pest of potato crops. It is most likely native to the area between Colorado and northern Mexico, and was discovered in 1824 by Thomas Say in the Rocky Mountains. Since the mid-nineteenth century, it has been one of the most destructive pests of the cultivated potato. The insect made its way to Germany in the 1870s but was successfully eradicated. However, it made a second appearance after World War I in the Bordeaux area in France, where it probably arrived with American troops and equipment. It reached the French border with Germany by 1936 and continued spreading eastward. It was probably transferred to Czechoslovakia with the German occupation after the Munich agreement and to Poland after the Nazi invasion in 1939.
  The most common method of dealing with the pest is through the use of pesticides. DDT was effectively used until the bug developed resistance by the 1950s. Subsequently, other insecticides were employed but these eventually ran into a similar problem.
caption: Native ranges of the Colorado beetle and the potato
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