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Documents - Germany at War, 1914-1918: Privation and Ferment on the Home Front
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1.   Industrial Employment (1914-1919)
Mobilization for the war meant that men were drafted into military service and women stepped onto the factory floor. These figures on industrial employment during the war show that female workers....
2.   Auxiliary Service Law (December 1916)
The Auxiliary Service Law represented the most lasting outcome of the Hindenburg Program. The....
3.   Labor's Vision of Collective Bargaining (March 1918)
With the passage of the Auxiliary Service Law in 1916, labor unions were allowed to organize....
4.   Rationing in Principle
In the early months of the war, price controls were implemented to regulate food supplies. Prices continued to rise, however, and the German government increasingly suspended the market mechanism....
5.   Rationing in Practice: Queuing for Food (October 1917)
The system of rationing was far from adequate for the basic needs of the German population. The impact of the blockade and the resulting critical shortages in basic areas transformed consumption....
6.   Dancing the Polonaise (August 1916)
This letter from a local magistrate illustrates the tensions between authorities and civilians over the short supply of food in the city of Magdeburg. The resentments of urban consumers were first....
7.   Hunger: Ernst Gläser, Born in 1902 (1928)
Novelist, editor, and journalist Ernst Gläser (1902-1963) spoke for a troubled generation when he wrote Born in 1902. The novel became an international bestseller soon after it was published....
8.   Inflation (1913-1920)
Despite price controls and the rationing system for the production and distribution of supplies, overall material scarcity led to alarming price inflation. This table illustrates the scale of wartime....
9.   The Black Market (August 1916 and April 1918)
The black market survived as the competitor to the administered food supply. The forces of supply and demand thrived here, and practically any foodstuff could be found — for a price. The prolongation....
10.   The Impact on Popular Morale (March 1917)
The command economy meant that the state was the public arbiter of hunger. It was also a symbol of the problem. Bureaucratic imperiousness and incompetence were convenient, omnipresent targets of....
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