The economic depression in the late 1920s led to the governments in continental Europe generally giving agricultural aid, so the decade before the war was a period of steady growth of grain production. The whole European continent provides nearly 90% of the food it needs (calculated by calories), but feed is only short of 10%, and fat and edible oil are short of 45%. Like Germany, the European continent is almost self-sufficient in making bread grains, potatoes, sugar and milk, but 15% of the meat depends on overseas supply. In anticipation of an emergency, most countries have increased their stocks, enacted laws to control food, and appointed basic staff. In the Netherlands, the wartime food organization established by 1939 was initially recognized by the German occupation authorities, but was later replaced by the familiar National Agricultural Association. However, because the foundation of state control was laid long before the German invasion, the Dutch system continued to operate without much interference. As a result, until the final stage of the war, the war hindered the traffic and control work, and the distribution of food was still quite satisfactory.
Looking back at the whole war period, the grain output of countries in continental Europe decreased by 10% in the first half of the war, and decreased by 20% to 25% by the end of the war. The output of crops, especially bread grains, decreased less, while the output of livestock products, especially meat, decreased more. From 1943, the central part of the mainland began to feel the full impact of the war, and agricultural production in some countries improved slightly. After the war, that is, in the autumn of 1945, the first truly disastrous crop failure occurred. The situation varies greatly from country to country, but except Denmark, the total amount of rations and food supply in all countries is less than that in Germany. In most parts of Finland, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands and France, especially cities in Poland, Russia, Yugoslavia and Greece, residents have to live far below the minimum demand for a long time. Those who have the money to buy things from the black market don't feel that there is any shortage of materials, but most urban residents can't often supplement the shortage of rations by illegal means.
The health of all residents in Europe has been damaged to some extent. Weight loss is common in adults, while stunting in children is well documented. Chondropathy and gastrointestinal diseases have increased, and patients who are hungry and swollen have appeared in the most serious places. The infant mortality rate has increased. In places where food consumption is particularly low, the incidence and mortality of tuberculosis have also increased greatly. However, due to the improvement of medical prevention and treatment, the health status of most people after the war is better than that of the previous generation after the first world war. In most cases, the damage is not as long-lasting as those who have to undergo this severe test expected at that time.
Holland in World War II
Because the geographical position of the Netherlands makes it a possible springboard to attack Britain and a bridgehead to defend the allied forces, Germany strategically wants to have good relations with the Netherlands. However, by February of 194 1, the Germans must have understood that they could not expect the Dutch people to obey, because that month, strikes and riots started in Amsterdam and then spread to other cities. The provocation of the Dutch Nazis aroused the first natural outbreak of public anger. Anger against the Germans also began to rise, first because the persecution of Jews by the Germans escalated, and later because of the urgent need of war, the exploitation of human and material resources by the Germans intensified. Since 194 1, the scope of forced labor for men and women has been expanding. Skilled workers were tricked into working in Germany. 194 1 7 After the opening of the Eastern Front, the Dutch were recruited to fight against the enemies of Germany, or moved them to use their agricultural skills to develop the newly conquered Ukrainian grasslands.
1942, the Germans decided to give up the hope of cajoling or intimidating the Dutch and take tough countermeasures to show that the Dutch had begun to resist. In the spring of this year, Himmler and his main assistant, heydrich, visited the Netherlands and personally gave brief instructions to their representative in the Netherlands, the police chief Lauter. In May, officers of the Dutch armed forces were detained again, and 460 important people in the Netherlands were arrested as hostages. Their number later increased to about 1000. The first hostage shooting took place in August 1942, when the Germans executed five hostages in retaliation for a sabotage in Rotterdam. In autumn, they began to forcibly evacuate the residents along the Dutch coast, including some residents in The Hague, because they were increasingly afraid of the allied attack. Due to the rapid deterioration of fuel and food shortages, Dutch residents have suffered greatly, and this migration has increased their suffering. At the same time, the newly promulgated law has strengthened the German control over Dutch labor and manpower, so they can escort thousands of Dutch workers to work in Germany-no fewer than 46,000 in May and June of 1942 alone.
With the arrival of the 1943 new year, all the intense emotions caused by this oppression began to erupt. During June+10 in 5438, several leaders of the national socialist movement were assassinated, which showed the people's hatred for this organization. Active resistance to the occupying power has also begun to take the form of destroying factories produced for Germans and destroying the roster of workers to be escorted abroad. The railway was also attacked for two purposes: to hinder the German army's combat efforts and to prevent or slow down the work of escorting workers abroad. In retaliation, the Germans executed a number of hostages, and then attacked the university at the end of March, arresting thousands of college students and taking them hostage. On March 1943 and 16, decrees were issued to limit the number of college students enrolled. The admission condition is that they must swear allegiance, otherwise they will be sent to work in Germany. It is said that 85% of the students refused to sign. In April, tensions in the Netherlands intensified. On April 29th, the order issued by General christiansen, the German Commander-in-Chief, was announced, ordering all former non-commissioned officers of the Dutch Armed Forces to report for duty and be held in German prison camps. This triggered a new crisis. The next day, the Dutch government in London broadcast an appeal to the relevant personnel to resist this order: "Don't register ... ignore their call. Try to let them not find you! " In view of this sense of danger of the Dutch people, on April 30, martial law was declared throughout the Netherlands, a curfew was imposed, and other restrictions on freedom of movement were made. Offenders could be sentenced to death. However, in the next few days, there were fierce demonstrations, people were shot dead, strikes broke out all over the country, farmers refused to hand over cattle and milk, railways and docks were damaged, and factories and farms caught fire. From 2 to 6 May, at least 2 1 Dutch people were sentenced to death for taking part in strikes or other crimes. After the Germans regained control of the situation, they took the opportunity to fully mobilize Dutch workers, which was hinted by Seth Inquart, the German Commissioner in the Netherlands, in February. According to a decree of1May 6, 943, all men between the ages of 18 and 35 must register for hard labor, and all students who have not signed the declaration of allegiance must also register for hard labor. On May 13, German police chief Lauter issued a notice to confiscate all radio equipment and its accessories and parts, whether it is private houses or shops. /kloc-The martial law was lifted in May 0/5, but the provisions on compulsory labor and confiscation of radio equipment remained unchanged. On the same day, Seth Inquart issued another order to deal with passive resistance in government work, and those who caused serious administrative damage accidents could be sentenced to life hard labor or death. This measure proves that the appeal made by Dutch Prime Minister Professor Gabrandi from London in February this year is successful. He called on all loyal Dutch officials to use all means within their power to refuse to implement various laws and regulations apparently promulgated to help the Germans fight.
At about this time, there was a wave of resistance from two extremely important aspects. First, the Catholic Church and the Christian Church submitted a joint protest to Seth Inquart, which was read out in the pulpit of all churches in the Netherlands on February 2 1943. The protest mentioned in the strongest angry words the destruction of justice, the destruction of Christian principles, the persecution of Jews, the escort of Dutch workers to Germany, forced labor in the Netherlands, and the killing of hostages. The second protest was issued by the Dutch medical community in June 1943. Attention is drawn to the physical and mental effects of oppression, malnutrition of Dutch residents and the spread of tuberculosis caused by it, as well as the unfair situation of Dutch food exported to Germany in high quantity. It also mentioned the psychological torture of forcing the Dutch to make weapons against their compatriots who fought side by side with the Allies against Germany. However, the rapidly deteriorating war situation of the Germans prevented them from listening to humanitarian appeals; On the contrary, this situation prompted them to take more cruel actions. After they forced the residents in the coastal areas to evacuate, it seems that there are even signs of taking stronger defensive measures. 1944 On New Year's Day, the miser made a speech in which he played up the terrible things that might be brought about by the allied invasion. In particular, he pointed out that because most of the land in the Netherlands is below sea level, the invasion may lead to the inundation of newly developed lowlands (dry swamps). Therefore, this topic was widely used by Dutch newspapers under the control of Germany in an attempt to threaten the Dutch people to become obedient, making them too scared to resist and cooperate with the Allies. Later, this situation eased again, focusing on the "proud" task of the Netherlands as a fortress against the "Bolshevization" of Europe and the value of submerged lowlands as defensive weapons. Indeed, when this kind of propaganda appeared in the spring of 1944, the Germans were actually releasing water in some areas-although the Germans tried to narrow down the scope, it was better to explain it, but it was quickly spread by underground newspapers, so that people could know the situation directly in advance.
However, on the whole, Germans are unwilling to be outspoken on issues involving their own interests and security. On May 1944 and 13, Seth Inquart issued a new order, stipulating that if the situation requires (that is, the allied forces landed), martial law should be implemented immediately, and the Dutch should be strictly controlled, and the Germans should not be hindered in any way. In fact, all Dutch people have to carry out German orders, and offenders will be put to death. In July, shortly after the allied forces landed in Normandy, the disguise of sharing power with the Dutch came to an end because of the cancellation of the "advisory cabinet" of the miser. During the rest of the German occupation, the Dutch were ruled by naked German military dictatorship. However, when the Dutch saw the allied forces sweeping across Europe in the late summer of 1944, they naturally thought that the moment of liberation was just around the corner. It is in this expectation and hope to speed up this ending that the Dutch government in exile reached an agreement with the Allied High Command and the domestic resistance movement and ordered the railway to hold a general strike on September 1944. This order was universally carried out at once. Within forty-eight hours, all the trains in Holland stopped, except a few driven by the Germans themselves. The Germans failed to break the strike through terror or by promising double wages and rations. However, at this time, the allied attack suffered a serious setback in Anan. The Germans stepped up their repression of the areas they still controlled in the Netherlands, and the strike began to be retaliated, not only against the striking workers, but also all the residents. The Germans thought that the Dutch had lost all their rights, so they began to destroy and rob Dutch state property in a planned and ruthless way. In Holland, the severe cold aggravated a terrible winter. Allied forces bombed frequently, and food, fuel and electricity were extremely scarce. 1in the summer of 944, the grain storage on the west coast where some of the largest cities in the Netherlands are located was reduced to only two or three weeks according to the order of the German Civil Administration. In retaliation for the railway strike, it is forbidden to transport grain from the far east agricultural area to big cities. The embargo was not lifted until165438+1October 8, but by that time, the severe cold season had begun and it was no longer possible to store food. In addition to the retaliatory measures of the Germans, the strike also made it impossible to transport materials to cities, so the reserves of coal and food soon dried up. In addition, 30 thousand railway workers went on strike-including their families, a total of100000-and they all had to hide for dinner. In June 165438+ 10, the Germans began rounding up the Dutch in the streets and houses and escorting them to Germany. As a result of these hardships, in October and February of 1945, the mortality rate of six cities with a total population of more than two million was almost twice that of the same period of 1944. According to newspaper reports, in Rotterdam alone, an average of 400 people starve to death every day.
The Germans built their defenses along the wide estuary in the southern half of Holland. At the beginning of the new year, 1945, they still occupy most of the Netherlands, with a population of about 6 million. The area occupied by the Allies is on the verge of starvation, while the area occupied by the Germans is completely hungry. However, the Dutch spirit did not collapse, and the activities against the Germans did not stop. At the beginning of March, an attempt was made to murder Lauter, the German police chief and member of the Standing Committee of the Public Security Committee, which caused particularly cruel revenge. For this crime, on March 7th, about 400 people were executed, many of whom were shot in the coastal sand dunes of Svenning Root. It was not until the beginning of April that the Allies began to enter the Netherlands from Germany and liberated the whole Netherlands on May 6 1945. By this time, the physical suffering of the Dutch people has ended. In the last stage of the war, the Germans dealt a further heavy blow to the country. In the ports of Rotterdam and Amsterdam, they carried out sabotage without strategic significance, which seems to be purely out of revenge. They also destroyed the seawall, and the sea water further flooded a large area of fertile land.