Supplies 2 of 3

The laughing child (photo below left) is a timeless indication of a happy family, but his cot reveals the cramped living conditions in post-war Heidelberg. While only 0.5 percent of building stock had been destroyed, housing did not increase until 1948 for lack of building materials. It was even reduced, as the Americans had seized 1,000 largish apartments (four percent). In these cases, all the furnishings had to stay in the building, and only food and clothing could be taken out. So the readiness to receive more people was soon exhausted. As early as 12 July 1945 the city council decided not to allow any more outsiders to move to the city. Food cards were to be withdrawn if this happened. After the arrival first of people made homeless by air-raids (e.g. in Mannheim) and then the United States occupying armies, a new group of “refugees from the East” turned up in 1946, who had to be housed as fast as possible. In December 1945 the refugee commissioner in Karlsruhe announced the assignment of 15,000 people from the Soviet-occupied territories of the former German Reich and from eastern central Europe. The city administration protested in vain. In the summer months of 1946, trains carrying 1,000 people each time arrived every eight to ten days. After emerging from quarantine in the Wilckens School reception camp, they were examined, registered and signed up with the labor exchange. Following months spent under disastrous hygienic conditions in restaurants and other collective accommodation the housing authority assigned them to private residences – without the agreement of the people already living there.

The photo shows to Heidelberg women buying sausage goods from a butcher. He is tearing off the food stamps needed. After the war, the population had to continue presenting stamps to be allowed to buy certain foodstuffs. The military government had introduced new food cards for this purpose. American soldiers were not allowed to buy food in German shops. The Heidelberg region was dependent on meat imports from regions with excesses – for instance the rural district of Eppingen – as it could only cover one third of its needs by itself. From April 1945 professional anglers could apply for licenses to catch fish from the Neckar – about 10 to15 were expected to be interested. In the same month, the military government offered to make available for pigfeed the large quantities of food waste produced daily in the Grenadier barracks DP camp. On 2 May about 100,000 people were to be supplied with food in the whole of Heidelberg. Due to the coal shortage, butchers and slaughterhouses had to receive ice from the city every day, and bakeries were to be consolidated in June 1945 to bake bread at only one location, using the rest as sales outlets. Besides the regular market there was also illegal bartering and irregular business without food marks, involving both locals, US soldiers and DPs.

The photo shows people lined up in front of the tobacco distribution point in the Landfried building in Bergheim. Actually, the Heidelberg tobacco factory J. P. Landfried was only permitted to give tobacco to Americans, by order of the military government. From time to time, however, former Wehrmacht soldiers attempted to procure tobacco here. After two amputated veterans had been illegally presented with several packets of tobacco the phenomenon became a custom. More and more released prisoners-of-war made their way to Heidelberg in order to obtain something to smoke from the tobacco factory. Rumor had it that every released Wehrmacht soldier got two packets of fine-cut and pipe tobacco. According to Heidelberg author Werner Pieper, a total of 600,000 packets of tobacco were distributed in this way. Assuming four packets per man, that would mean that 150,000 former German Wehrmacht soldiers, after their release from prison, were supplied with tobacco in Heidelberg – against the order of the military government. Tobacco was one of the most important goods for illegal bartering and the black market, so that smokers were not the only ones interested in tobacco.