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• Evacuation


  1. Evacuate children from major population centers

  2. Many families choose not to evacuate

  3. Allied bombing attacks became more common from 1942

  4. Mass evacuation began

  5. Evacuated to rural areas such as Bavaria

  6. 2.5 million children evacuated

  7. Part of KLV programme

  8. Placed into one of 9000 camps

  9. Supervised by Hitler Youth leaders & teachers
• Rationing


  1. First began Aug 1939

  2. Included bread, meat, dairy products, soap

  3. From November clothes

  4. Food stamps were issued

  5. Appropriate number of food stamps needed to be handed over when food brought

  6. Soldiers on home leave given stamps

  7. Theft of stamps was criminal offence

  8. Resulted in forced labour camp
• Rationing

  • at restaurants you had to pay for food + hand over food stamps
  • rations were sufficient enough too maintain a basic level of nutrition
  • toilet paper and Tobacco
  • Tobacco was used to buy other things
  • shortages of coal and shoes during winter 1939-40 made people unhappy
• Rationing

  • early part of the war goods from occupied countries were shipped back
  • so many restrictions that in may 1942 the government cut rations
• Rationing

  • German people learned to cope
  • at the end of the war 3 million German living in east Germany fled west to escape SU
  • they found many cities destroyed by allied bombing and serious food shortages
  • their arrival in west Germany added to the problem and in some places there was starvation
• Operation Barbarossa


  1. June 1941

  2. Hitler launched invasion of the Soviet Union

  3. Germans advanced quickly

  4. By November threatening Moscow, Leningrad & Kiev

  5. German advance halted as temperature dropped sharply, soldiers lacked winter equipment, supplies
• As Germans retreated


  Soviets adopted a scorched earth policy, destroying everything useful to Germans
• Over 1 million German soldiers are thought to have died in the prolonged and fierce battle
• Total war in Germany


  1. Feb 1943 Goebbels declared Germany involved in total war

  2. All of Germany's resources and people had to be fully committed to fighting for victory

  3. Everything had to be used for winning the war
• One of the problems Germany faced was a growing shortage of labour to work in the factories
• Use of slave labour


  1. Oct 1941 Hitler announced Russian prisoners of war could be transported to Germany as slave labour

  2. By 1944 over 7 million were working for German industry
• Conscription in Germany


  1. From Jan 1943 men 16-65 and women 17-45 had to register for work

  2. Small businesses shut, employees sent to fight or do war work
• Exceptions


  Hitler believed married women should not work
• Changes to working conditions in Germany

  1. Aug 1944 holidays banned

  2. Working week increased to 60 hours
• Professional sports teams were taken to help places, postal services reduced to save fuel, entertainment shut down
• Formation of the Volkssturm (home guard)


  1. Formed to protect Germany from invasion

  2. Boys as young as 12 were forced to join
• Allied bombing of Germany


  1. From Aug 1940 RAF carried out bombing attacks

  2. At first targeted military and industrial targets, but impact was minimal

  3. From 1942 British and American bombing shifted to targeting civilian areas

  4. March-July 1943 German cities bombed causing severe damage

  5. Bombing of Hamburg in summer 1943 killed 70,000 civilians and forced 1 million to flee
• The German government tried to reduce the impact of the bombing by stories of bravery and determination, and setting up welfare organisations to provide food and drink
• Despite propaganda, the bombing had a negative impact on German morale, as many people tried to carry on with their normal lives
• Allies began to focus on railway lines, bridges & motorways


  1944
• Bombing raids


  Reduced estimated war production by 1 percent
• Some industry did have major setbacks in war production
• Allied raids on the Ruhr valley in 1944


  Thought to have reduced metal production by 40%
• Bombing may have impacted the transport of war goods
• Allies found several hundred tanks at a railway yard in Munich
• Allied bombing of railway lines


  Made it impossible to send the tanks to the front