Bread cards in Germany

On Monday 22 February 1915 Berlin began issuing bread cards. Every entitled resident received a booklet of 23 weekly cards, valid until 1 August 1915. The cards were divided into coupons for 25, 50, 100 and 250 grams, which the seller cut off and kept. The city authorities set the ration at 2 kilograms of bread a week per person, or 225 grams of flour a day. According to the German Historical Museum, average consumption before the war had been 380 grams.

Why bread ran short

Before the war Germany imported about a third of its food from abroad. The war cut off this trade. The British naval blockade shut the country off from overseas supplies, and nothing came any longer from Russia, until then an important supplier of grain. The army had priority in supplies, and the countryside lacked the farmhands called up for the army and the horses requisitioned for it. As early as 1914 the cities went through supply disruptions and panic buying. In mid-October the government banned feeding bread grain and flour to animals and allowed rye flour to be added to wheat bread and potato flour to rye bread. In December maximum prices for bread and grain were introduced and the War Grain Company (Kriegsgetreidegesellschaft) was set up.

The most far-reaching step came with the ordinance of the Federal Council (Bundesrat), the body representing the states of the Reich, of 25 January 1915. All stocks of rye and wheat were seized for the War Grain Company, which set prices and distributed grain among the states of the Reich, districts and municipalities. The same ordinance created the office of Reich Commissioner for bread grain, which went to the Prussian official Georg Michaelis. From then on the local authorities decided how much bread each resident would get, and cards were the way to share out what had been allocated to them.

Cards across the Reich

In February 1915 bread cards appeared in many cities, and from 1 March the rules applied throughout the Reich. The flour ration soon fell to 200 grams a day. Instead of cards, many municipalities issued “bread books”, in which the seller wrote in by hand the amounts handed out, and on the first page an official certified the number of people in the household. Bakers and merchants had to keep ledgers of the bread and flour they had sold. Only those who had accounted for their previous stocks received new ones.

The same rules applied in the Prussian partition. In Września bread and flour had been sold for stamps since the start of the war, and in February 1915 bread cards were introduced. At certain times bakers could sell bread only 48 hours after baking, and baking rolls and cakes was banned at home as well.

Bread cards were only the beginning. In the following months cards for fat, sugar, milk and meat were added, and from the spring of 1916 for potatoes. The rations on paper changed little during the war, but what could actually be obtained depended on the season and the region. The state also allocated food that did not exist, and many cards became worthless. Even so, in the judgement of the German Historical Museum, the rationing system allowed millions of people to survive.