Editing Disarmed Enemy Forces (section)

==Germany at the end of the war==
[[Food and agriculture in Nazi Germany]] had declined greatly in 1944 and 1945. Germany had mobilized for total war, and food for the troops and war workers was vital to the war.<ref name="bischamb11"/> A shortage of [[synthetic fertilizers]] had developed after nitrogen and [[phosphate]] stocks were channeled into ammunition (explosives) production,<ref name="bischamb11"/><ref name="farq16">{{Harvnb|Farquharson|1985|pp=16, 28–29, 252}}</ref> and much of the potato crop was requisitioned to produce ethanol fuel for the military's [[V-2 rocket|V-2]] arsenal. Consequently, crop levels had fallen by 20% to 30% at the end of the war.<ref name="bischamb11"/><ref name="farq1">{{Harvnb|Farquharson|1985|pp=1–29, 44–60, 252}}</ref> Allied bombing raids had destroyed thousands of farm buildings, and rendered food processing facilities inoperable.<ref name="bischamb11"/><ref name="farq16"/> Lack of farm machinery, spare parts, and fertilizer caused an almost total disruption of agriculture when the war was over.<ref name="bischamb11"/><ref name="farq1"/> After the release of [[Ostarbeiter]]s, slave laborers that were Soviet POWs and Eastern Europeans, extreme agriculture labor shortages existed that could be relieved only by German DEFs and SEPs.<ref name="bischamb11"/><ref name="farq1"/> Roving bands of displaced persons and returning soldiers and civilians decimated the hog herds and chicken flocks of German farmers.<ref name="bischamb11"/><ref name="farq1"/>

The destroyed German transportation infrastructure created additional logistical difficulties, with railroad lines, bridges, canals and terminals left in ruins.<ref name="bischamb7">{{Harvnb|Bischoff|Ambrose|1992|p=7}}</ref> The turnaround time for railroad wagons was five times higher than the prewar average.<ref name="bischamb7"/><ref>{{Harvnb|Farquharson|1985|p=25}}</ref> Of the 15,600 German locomotives, 38.6% were no longer operating and 31% were damaged.<ref name="bischamb7"/> Only 1,000 of the 13,000 kilometers of track in the British zone were operable.<ref name="bischamb7"/> Urban centers often had to be supplied with horse-drawn carriages and wheeled carts.<ref name="bischamb11"/>

By May 8, 1945, the Allies had become responsible for the health and wellbeing of 7 million displaced persons in Germany and 1.6 million [[Allied-occupied Austria|in Austria]], including [[Forced labour under German rule during World War II|slave laborers from all over Europe]].<ref name="bischamb2"/><ref>{{Harvnb|Marrus|1985|pp=283–313}}</ref> Soon thereafter, German populations had swollen by 12 to 14.5 million [[Expulsion of Germans after World War II|ethnic Germans expelled from Eastern Europe by the Soviet Union]].<ref name="bischamb4"/> Bavarian villages in the American zone faced 15% to 25% population increases from displaced persons, with Munich alone having to deal with 75,000 displaced persons.<ref name="bischamb4">{{Harvnb|Bischoff|Ambrose|1992|p=4}}</ref>

The worst dislocation of agriculture was caused by the German zonal partitions, which cut off Western Germany from its "breadbasket" of farm lands east of the [[Oder-Neisse line]] that had accounted for 35% of Germany's prewar food production,<ref name="bischamb11">{{Harvnb|Bischoff|Ambrose|1992|p=11}}</ref> and which the [[Yalta Conference]] had given to Poland to compensate for lands of Eastern Poland.<ref name="bischamb11"/> The Soviet Union, with millions of its own starving citizens at home, was not willing to distribute this production to the population in western Germany.<ref name="bischamb12">{{Harvnb|Bischoff|Ambrose|1992|p=12}}</ref> In January 1945, the basic German ration was 1,625 calories/day, and that was further reduced to 1,100 calories by the end of the war in the British zone, and remained at that level into the summer, with levels varying from 840 calories/day in the Ruhr to 1,340 calories/day in Hamburg.<ref name="bischamb12"/> The situation was no better in the American zones of Germany and Austria.<ref name="bischamb12"/>

These problems combined to create severe shortages across Germany. One summary report estimated that just prior to [[Victory in Europe]] (V-E) Day, German consumer daily caloric intake was only 1,050, and that after V-E Day it dropped to 860 calories per day, though actual estimates are confusing because of the wide variation by location and because unofficial estimates were usually higher.<ref name="tent99">{{Harvnb|Tent|1992|p=199}}</ref> It was clear by any measure that, by the spring of 1945, the German population was existing on rations that would not sustain life in the long term.<ref name="tent99"/> A July 1945 CCAC report stated that "the food situation in western Germany is perhaps the most serious problem of the occupation. Average consumption is now about one third below the general accepted subsistence level of 2000 calories per day."<ref name="tent100">{{Harvnb|Tent|1992|p=100}}</ref>

In the spring of 1946 the [[International Red Cross]] was finally allowed to provide limited amounts of food aid to prisoners of war in the U.S. occupation zone.<ref>[http://www.icrc.org/web/eng/siteeng0.nsf/htmlall/57jnwx?opendocument ICRC in WW II: German prisoners of war in Allied hands] [[International Red Cross]] 2 February 2005</ref> By June 1948, DEF rations had been increased to 1990 calories and in December 1949 rationing was effectively discontinued and the food crisis was over.<ref name="Balabkins">{{cite book | last = Balabkins | first = Nicholas | year = 1964 | title = Germany under direct controls: economic aspects of industrial disarmament, 1945–1948 | url = https://archive.org/details/germanyunderdire0000bala | url-access = registration | publisher = Rutgers University Press |pages=113–125 | isbn = 978-0-8135-0449-0}}</ref>