Were Rural Germans Better Off Than Urban Citizens During the War? The Case of Straß‎burg

Abstract

Urban Germans believed that civilians in rural areas had a more plentiful and varied diet than city dwellers. There was widespread suspicion that agricultural workers were deliberately cheating the rest of society by hoarding food for themselves or selling it illegally for exorbitant prices. There certainly were thriving black markets, yet differences in the nutritional status of urban and rural civilians may not have been significant. Poor farmers often had limited control of their own foodstuffs. Military action also impacted civilian food supplies, though this was rarely recognized in the cities. This chapter uses newly discovered anthropometric data of school boys from Straβ‎burg and the surrounding rural areas to measure differences in the nutritional status of urban and rural civilians. These analyses are matched alongside the qualitative evidence and together they indicate a more complicated story between the supposed urban and rural divide.