Re: Questions on rationing

Eberhard Weber (glosys@PSNW.COM)
Wed, 5 Feb 1997 16:33:49 -0800 

A few short 'snippets' come to mind.  The first recollection of ration
cards in Germany stems from my mother taking me to a shop in Binz, on the
Baltic Sea, where we went for a vacation at the start of the war or even
shortly prior to that.  The shopkeeper was a corpulent lady and it seems
all they sold in that shop was butter and eggs - there was little other
merchandise in that shop.  My mother handed her a relatively stiff yellow
paper card from which the shopkeeper cut some pieces for the butter my
mother had purchased.  Both then stood quietly, looking each other in the
eyes and then my mother said one word, "schlimm"  (bad), and then the
shopkeeper repeated that word.  That was the end of their conversation.

Using this word was safe because it did not place blame, neither one could
be arrested for uttering it while any further comments would have been
"unsafe" for either or both.  But the meaning was clear to both and even
I, perhaps six years old at the time, was able to fathom that something
was wrong here, that there hang something in the air and it was not good
nor clear and better left not to be inquired about by me.

The next snippet relates to having left Berlin when the bombing became too
heavy in order to go to a private boarding school, a well regarded
humanistic gymnasium in Thueringen, a beautyful region in central Germany.
Within a year the school was transformed into a paramilitary school and we
had to change our Hitleryouth uniform and wore a stripe on our sleeves
with the silver-threaded inscription:  SS Heimschule Himmler, Scleusingen,
i.e. SS Boarding School Himmler (in the town of) Schleusingen.

If we had some vacation or holidays we were allowed to leave, but we
received military orders, a form to be countersigned by any military post
at or near our destination, we had to travel in uniform and we received
military ration cards.  I was about 11 years old then.  This was "big
stuff" because we were considered to be "men", we had "status", we were
different, we were officially sanctioned etc.

The third snippet relates to the last trip home because within a week of
arrival the advancing American Army had cut the lines between our home and
the school and about a week later the Americans had arrived.  They had
encircled us in a strategy called "Kesselschlacht" , meaning a contained
battle, i.e. encirclement and then fighting whatever was within that
circle.  Our town must have been in the middle because suddenly there were
masses of german military and equipment seeking to break out, and while
some did, the hole they created was plugged immediately and all equipment
was then destroyed and german solfiers scattered into the woods, took
their insignias off etc.  But many were caught.  Packed onto american
trucks I saw convoys of these trucks pulling out every day to transport
the prisoners to some camp.  As kids we were able to mingle around and I
collected many ration cards on which these prisoners had hastily written
the addresses of their family, begging me to write to them and tell them
where I had seen them and that they were alright, at least that day.  And
they suggested I use the remaining rations as a reward for my efforts.
Nice thought, but they were useless, of course, because the encirclement
cut off supplies, the system which collected these ration coupons no
longer existed and any remaining supplies disappeared from shelves and
re-surfaced again as black market goods.

The final snippet relates to a town in the West (american zone) because
the place where the american army overtook us was given to the russians in
a deal to give the americans access to Berlin which the russians
conquered.  I had fled from the russian sector in January 1946 to go to my
grandparents who wound up in the amercian zone.  The town was 68%
destroyed and people were packed together, whether they liked it or not,
i.e. whether you wanted strangers in your home or not.  One such building
left standing was a former fraternity house in this university town where
half the university buildings were destroyed.  The american military
government then expelled those who lived in that house, which had an
auditorium, in order to establish an "America House".  They established a
forum, sort of a townhall meeting, and professors who had no classes to
teach came there in droves.  I recall one theme, not exactly but sort of:
"What economic, logistic and moral rationale can justify issuing one egg
in place of the 50 gramms of meat printed on the ration card".  I was
thirteen by then and I cannot forget the impression I had of how strange
it is to get a group of bright minds together to occupy their unoccupied
minds with trivia to at least offer some justification for exercising
their underutilized mind.  I suppose I have lived long enough now to come
full circle on that particular experience when I see how brilliantly we
once again argue about trivia, how people can engage in endless debates
over nothing, engage in mental gymnastics to advocate or defend their
personal theories or to establish plausible deniability for their actions.
But that is an entirely different matter.

Best regards
Eberhard Weber
The Berlin Schoolboy

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