Supplies 1 of 3
The photo shows a month’s ration for March 1946 – 12.8 kg of bread, a bag with foodstuffs, possibly barley or oats, one sausage and two pieces of butter or animal fat. It is striking that no vegetables or fruit are to be seen; the food cards probably refer to them only symbolically. The arrival of the first batches of eastern European refugees and expellees brought renewed shortages and in April 1946 the bread ration fell by half to 6.4 kg per month. From May to mid-September 1946 the Heidelberg residents received only 4 kg of bread per month. The food supply was one of the most urgent and long-lasting problems of the post-war period.
The baby having a diaper change here is severely undernourished. The under-supply of the Heidelberg population with food, which fluctuated in the time after the war ended, particularly affected children and young people. At the end of July 1946 many school students did not have enough to eat for breakfast, if anything. Disease increased due to the food shortages. The number of tuberculosis cases, in particular, had increased sixfold in 1946 compared to 1940. At the same time, in 1946 there were 36.6 percent more deaths in Heidelberg than in the final year of the war. Child mortality was 54.1 percent higher than in 1940. After the supply situation improved in the last months of 1946 the following year saw another food crisis. According to data from the military government, the daily ration was sometimes merely 791 kcal. The Heidelberg health authority stated in July 1947 that more than half of the approximately 15,000 pupils of the city and rural district were at least 10 percent smaller than the weight normal for their age and height. Summer 1947 saw the introduction of school meals for severely under-weight pupils. The food was donated by Americans and distributed on average to 15,000 to 16,000 particularly needy people in Heidelberg, mainly children.
Destroyed railway tracks and bridges, as well as the lack of gas (petrol) and vehicles, hampered the provision of the Heidelberg population with fuel in the first post-war months. This not only meant that they could not heat their residences adequately, if at all, but also that it restricted their cooking facilities. On 8 May 1945 the Heidelberg city administration reported to the military government that so far it had only been possible to deliver coal to bakeries, butcher’s shops and some restaurants. The civilian population was told to go to the forestry authority for permission to chop wood from the city forest. The military government prohibited the private burning of coal briquettes. In July 1945 the city council decided to introduce a soup kitchen in the university refectory, primarily for people who could not cook themselves for lack of fuel. At first, between 1,000 and 2,000 portions were doled out. Jobless persons were to be obliged to chop firewood. The illicit collecting of wood in the city forest developed into a serious problem. In May 1946 there was still very little coal available and the city councilors anticipated an even more precarious supply in the coming winter. The city forest was again to be opened to private individuals to cut firewood, as long as insufficient coal and wood could be precured from elsewhere.
