Preventing Unrest and Disease: German Strategies and Policies during the Dutch Famine of 1944-1945
Abstract
The Dutch famine of 1944-1945, popularly known as the ‘Hunger Winter’, has commonly been viewed as the result of German hunger politics, which Nazi Germany also pursued elsewhere in Europe during WWII. This article challenges these assumptions about the famine politics of the German occupation authorities in the Netherlands by focusing on the complexity of German governance during the final phases of the war. Based on Dutch, German and Allied source materials, this article argues that the famine was caused and exacerbated by a complex culmination of several transportation and distribution problems. It also demonstrates how and why from late 1944 onward the German civil authorities found reasons to collaborate with Dutch food officials to prevent worse from happening and allow relief for the starving Dutch. In doing so, a shift is proposed from a mono-causal, highly-politicized explanatory framework to one that reveals the multiple dimensions of the famine.
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HISPANIA NOVA is a journal duly registered, with ISSN 1138-7319 and legal deposit M 9472-1998.
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