Twee deelnemers aan de hongertochten tijdens de hongerwinter

The Dutch famine of 1944–1945, known in the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

as the Hongerwinter (literal translation: hunger winter), was a

famine A famine is a widespread scarcity of food, caused by several factors including war, natural disasters, crop failure, population imbalance, widespread poverty, an economic catastrophe or government policies. This phenomenon is usually accompani ...

that took place in the

German-occupied Netherlands Despite Dutch neutrality, Nazi Germany invaded the Netherlands on 10 May 1940 as part of Fall Gelb (Case Yellow). On 15 May 1940, one day after the bombing of Rotterdam, the Dutch forces surrendered. The Dutch government and the royal family re ...

, especially in the densely populated western provinces north of the great rivers, during the winter of 1944–1945, near the end of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

. A German blockade cut off food and fuel shipments from farm towns. Some 4.5 million were affected and survived thanks to soup kitchens. Loe de Jong (1914–2005), author of ''

The Kingdom of the Netherlands During World War II ''The Kingdom of the Netherlands During World War II'' ( nl, Het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden in de Tweede Wereldoorlog) is the standard reference on the history of the Netherlands during World War II. The series was written by Loe de Jong (1914&nd ...

'', estimated at least 22,000 deaths occurred due to the famine. Another author estimated 18,000 deaths from the famine. Most of the victims were reportedly elderly men. The famine was alleviated by the liberation of the provinces by the

Allies An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...

in May 1945. Prior to that, bread baked from flour shipped in from Sweden, and the airlift of food by the

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) an ...

, the

Royal Canadian Air Force The Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF; french: Aviation royale canadienne, ARC) is the air and space force of Canada. Its role is to "provide the Canadian Forces with relevant, responsive and effective airpower". The RCAF is one of three environm ...

, and the

United States Army Air Forces The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...

– under an agreement with the Germans that if the Germans did not shoot at the mercy flights, the Allies would not bomb the German positions – helped to mitigate the famine. These were

Operations Manna and Chowhound Operation Manna and Operation Chowhound were humanitarian food drops, carried out to relieve a famine in the German-occupied Netherlands, undertaken by Allied bomber crews during the final days of World War II in Europe. Manna (29 April - 7 ...

. Operation Faust also trucked in food to the province.

Causes

Towards the end of World War II, food supplies became increasingly scarce in the Netherlands. After the landing of the Allied Forces on D-Day, conditions became increasingly bad in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands. The

were able to liberate the southern part of the country, but ceased their advance into the Netherlands when Operation Market Garden, the attempt to seize a bridge across the

Rhine ), Surselva, Graubünden, Switzerland , source1_coordinates= , source1_elevation = , source2 = Rein Posteriur/Hinterrhein , source2_location = Paradies Glacier, Graubünden, Switzerland , source2_coordinates= , so ...

Arnhem Arnhem ( or ; german: Arnheim; South Guelderish: ''Èrnem'') is a city and municipality situated in the eastern part of the Netherlands about 55 km south east of Utrecht. It is the capital of the province of Gelderland, located on both ban ...

, failed. The Allied advance into Germany was delayed by supply problems as the port of Antwerp was not usable until the approaches had been cleared in the

Battle of the Scheldt The Battle of the Scheldt in World War II was a series of military operations led by the First Canadian Army, with Polish and British units attached, to open up the shipping route to Antwerp so that its port could be used to supply the Alli ...

. But Montgomery had given priority to "Market Garden"; and to the capture of the French Channel ports like Boulogne, Calais and Dunkirk, which were resolutely defended and had suffered demolitions, see Operation Market Garden. After the national railways complied with the exiled Dutch government's appeal for a railway strike starting September 1944 to further the Allied liberation efforts, the German administration (under Wehrmachtbefehlshaber

Friedrich Christiansen Friedrich Christiansen (12 December 1879 – 3 December 1972) was a German general who served as commander of the German ''Wehrmacht'' in the occupied Netherlands during World War II. Christiansen was a World War I flying ace and the only seap ...

) retaliated by placing an embargo on all food transports to the western Netherlands. The food embargo was partially lifted in early November 1944.

Food

Food stocks in the cities in the western Netherlands rapidly ran out. The adult rations in cities such as

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban ar ...

dropped to below 1000

calories The calorie is a unit of energy. For historical reasons, two main definitions of "calorie" are in wide use. The large calorie, food calorie, or kilogram calorie was originally defined as the amount of heat needed to raise the temperature of o ...

(4,200

kilojoule The joule ( , ; symbol: J) is the unit of energy in the International System of Units (SI). It is equal to the amount of work done when a force of 1 newton displaces a mass through a distance of 1 metre in the direction of the force applied ...

s) a day by the end of November 1944 and to 580 calories in the west by the end of February 1945.Z. Stein, (1975). ''Famine and Human Development: The Dutch Hunger Winter of 1944–1945''. Over this ''Hongerwinter'' ("Hunger winter"), a number of factors combined to cause starvation in especially the large cities in the West of the Netherlands. The winter in the month of January 1945 itself was unusually harsh prohibiting transport by boat for roughly a month between early January 1945 and early February 1945. Also, the German army destroyed docks and bridges to flood the country and impede the Allied advance. Thirdly, Allied bombing made it extremely difficult to transport food in bulk, since Allied bombers could not distinguish German military and civilian shipments. As the south-eastern (the Maas valley) and the south-western part of the Netherlands (Walcheren and Beveland) became one of the main western battlefields, these conditions combined to make the transport of existing food stocks in large enough quantities nearly impossible. The areas affected were home to 4.5 million people. Butter disappeared after October 1944, shortly after railway transport to the western parts of the Netherlands had stopped in September due to the railway strike. The supply of vegetable fats dwindled to a minuscule seven-month supply of 1.3 liters per person. At first 100 grams of cheese were allotted every two weeks; the meat coupons became worthless. The bread ration had already dropped from 2,200 to 1,800 and then to 1,400 grams per week. Then it fell to 1,000 grams in October, and by April 1945 to 400 grams a week. Together with one kilogram of potatoes, this then formed the entire weekly ration. The black market increasingly ran out of food as well, and with the gas and electricity and heat turned off, everyone was very cold and very hungry. In search of food, young strong people would walk for tens of kilometers to trade valuables for food at farms. Tulip bulbs and sugar beets were commonly consumed. Furniture and houses were dismantled to provide fuel for heating. In the last months of 1944, in anticipation of the coming famine, tens of thousands of children were brought from the cities to rural areas where many remained until the end of the war. Deaths in the three big cities of the Western Netherlands (The Hague, Rotterdam, and Amsterdam) started in earnest in December 1944, reaching a peak in March 1945, but remained very high in April and May 1945. In early summer 1945 the famine was brought quickly under control. The deaths of 18,000 Dutch people between September 1944 and May 1945 were attributed to malnutrition as the primary cause and in many more cases as a contributing factor.

End of the famine

The Dutch Famine ended with the liberation by the Allies of the western Netherlands in May 1945. Shortly before that, some relief had come from "Swedish bread", which was baked in the Netherlands from flour shipped in from Sweden. Shortly after these shipments, the German occupiers allowed coordinated air drops of food over German-occupied Dutch territory by the

and

from 29 April to 7 May (Operation Manna), and by the U.S. Army Air Forces from 1 to 8 May ( Operation Chowhound). The Germans agreed not to shoot at the planes flying the mercy missions, and the Allies agreed not to bomb German positions. ''Operation Faust'' also trucked in food to

Rhenen Rhenen () is a municipality and a city in the central Netherlands. The municipality also includes the villages of Achterberg, Remmerden, Elst and Laareind. The town lies at a geographically interesting location, namely on the southernmost par ...

beginning on 2 May, utilizing 200 vehicles. Rhenen was also occupied by the Germans.

Legacy

The Dutch famine of 1944–45 was a rare case of a famine which took place in a modern, developed, and literate country, albeit one suffering under the privations of occupation and war. The well-documented experience has helped scientists to measure the effects of famine on human health. The Dutch Famine Birth Cohort Study found that the children of pregnant women exposed to famine were more susceptible to

diabetes Diabetes, also known as diabetes mellitus, is a group of metabolic disorders characterized by a high blood sugar level ( hyperglycemia) over a prolonged period of time. Symptoms often include frequent urination, increased thirst and increased ...

obesity Obesity is a medical condition, sometimes considered a disease, in which excess body fat has accumulated to such an extent that it may negatively affect health. People are classified as obese when their body mass index (BMI)—a person's ...

, cardiovascular disease,

microalbuminuria Microalbuminuria is a term to describe a moderate increase in the level of urine albumin. It occurs when the kidney leaks small amounts of albumin into the urine, in other words, when an abnormally high permeability for albumin in the glomerulus ...

and other health problems. Moreover, the children of the women who were pregnant during the famine were smaller, as expected. However, surprisingly, when these children grew up and had children those children were thought to ''also'' be smaller than average. This data suggested that the famine experienced by the mothers caused some kind of epigenetic changes that were passed down to the next generation. Despite this, a subsequent study by the same author failed to find a correlation between maternal exposure to famine and birth weight of the next generation. The discovery of the cause of

coeliac disease Coeliac disease (British English) or celiac disease (American English) is a long-term autoimmune disorder, primarily affecting the small intestine, where individuals develop intolerance to gluten, present in foods such as wheat, rye and barle ...

may also be partly attributed to the Dutch famine. With wheat in very short supply there was an improvement at a children's ward of coeliac patients. Stories tell of the first precious supplies of bread being given specifically to the (no longer) sick children, prompting an immediate relapse. Thus in the 1940s the Dutch

paediatrician Pediatrics ( also spelled ''paediatrics'' or ''pædiatrics'') is the branch of medicine that involves the medical care of infants, children, adolescents, and young adults. In the United Kingdom, paediatrics covers many of their youth until the ...

Dr. Willem Dicke was able to corroborate his previously researched hypothesis that wheat intake was aggravating coeliac disease. Later Dicke went on to prove his theory. Audrey Hepburn spent her childhood in the Netherlands during the famine and despite her later wealth she had lifelong negative medical repercussions. She had

anemia Anemia or anaemia (British English) is a blood disorder in which the blood has a reduced ability to carry oxygen due to a lower than normal number of red blood cells, or a reduction in the amount of hemoglobin. When anemia comes on slowly, t ...

, respiratory illnesses, and œdema as a result. Subsequent academic research on the children who were affected in the second trimester of their mother's pregnancy found an increased incidence of

schizophrenia Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by continuous or relapsing episodes of psychosis. Major symptoms include hallucinations (typically hearing voices), delusions, and disorganized thinking. Other symptoms include social wit ...

in these children. Also increased among them were the rates of schizotypal personality and neurological defects. Some studies have suggested that epigenetic damage caused by the famine has caused increased morbidity in the grandchildren of ''Hongerwinter'' survivors.

References

Notes Bibliography * Banning, C. (May 1946)
"Food Shortage and Public Health, First Half of 1945"
''Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science''. Vol. 245, The Netherlands during German Occupation, pp. 93–110. ( JSTOR.) * Barnouw, David (1999)
''De hongerwinter''
. * Bijvoet, Tom and Van Arragon Hutten, Anne (2013)
''The Hunger Winter''
. * Collingham, E. M. (2011). ''The Taste of War: World War Two and the Battle for Food''. * de Jong, Loe. ''

'' (vol VII), p. 1–270 (Verarmend Nederland, 1914–2005) * Hart, Nicky
"Famine, Maternal Nutrition and Infant Mortality: A Re-Examination of the Dutch Hunger Winter"
''Population Studies'' Vol. 47, No. 1 (March 1993), pp. 27–46 (JSTOR) * Hitchcock, William I. (2009)
''The Bitter Road to Freedom: The Human Cost of Allied Victory in World War II Europe''
pp. 98–129. * Sas, Anthony. "Holland's 'Hunger Winter' of 1944–45", ''Military Review'', September 1983, Vol. 63, Issue 9, pp. 24–32. * Sellin, Thorsten (ed.) (May 1946)
"The Netherlands During German Occupation"
''Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science'' Vol. 245, pp. i to 180. ( JSTOR.) * Stein, Zena (ed.) (1975). ''Famine and human development: The Dutch hunger winter of 1944–1945''. * van der Zee, Henri A. (1998). ''The Hunger Winter: Occupied Holland 1944–1945''. University of Nebraska Press. * Warmbrunn, Werner (1963)
''The Dutch Under German Occupation 1940–1945''
Stanford University Press.

External links

Dutch film
(starting at minute 2:00)
The Dutch Famine Birth Cohort Study

The Hunger winter and the allied food relief that followed
Multimedia
CBC Archives
– CBC Radio (22 April 1945) reporting on the famine in

Apeldoorn Apeldoorn (; Dutch Low Saxon: ) is a municipality and city in the province of Gelderland in the centre of the Netherlands. It is located about 60 km east of Utrecht, 60 km west of Enschede, 25 km north of Arnhem and 35 km south of Zwolle. Th ...

and the inflation of

food prices Food prices refer to the average price level for food across countries, regions and on a global scale. Food prices have an impact on producers and consumers of food. Price levels depend on the food production process, including food marketing ...