Popular protest
Women, politics and food riots in Berlin during World War I
Archived article from Oct 13, 2000
By Diane Cornell
It might seem an unlikely preparation for studying World War I, but the lessons Belinda J. Davis learned from her experiences organizing people in North Carolina led to the book "Home Fires Burning: Food, Politics, and Everyday Life in World War I Berlin" (University of North Carolina Press), a detailed account of the effects of Britain's economic blockade against Germany during the war.
Davis, an assistant professor of history, says the genesis of the book was her stint from 1981 to 1985 as a grassroots community organizer in North Carolina for the Southern Action League. The organization motivated people in low- and moderate-income neighborhoods to work together on common concerns such as lowering utility rates or making their neighborhoods safer. She saw that the collective actions of everyday people could make an impact, an idea that years later she realized was a major force in World War I Germany.
In her book, Davis details how the people of Germany, particularly women, changed the political scene, forcing government officials to recognize and address the needs of the lower middle and working classes in unprecedented fashion. In their quest for food for their starving families, these two classes, traditionally at odds with each other, drew together during the war, making apparently unified demands on the government. Gender played an important role in this unification, because women of both classes had primary responsibility for buying goods that were in perennially short supply.
"It suddenly became more important how much one had to spend than what one did to earn money," she says. "This transformed the way class operated and how people thought of themselves. The uniting of the classes in turn forced officials to revise their responses to the populace. Formerly, authorities demanded that German subjects served the state. During the war, popular protest helped spread the notion that the state was obliged to serve Germans."
According to Davis, "Home Fires Burning" is the first book to examine how class unity spearheaded by women created a widespread notion of popular sovereignty in Germany.
Davis begins by recounting the combination of several crucial errors that led to severe food shortages during the war. Ironically, the government, knowing that a third of the country's food was imported -- including meat, milk, butter and coffee -- developed a plan to store needed domestic food supplies in the event of war, but then quickly abandoned the idea. Officials concluded wrongly that any war with Britain would be brief and focused their attention on purely military strategies. As a result, they were completely unprepared for a rigorous, four-year economic blockade by Great Britain.
"Germany was strongest in supplying its own carbohydrates, via its harvests of potato and rye," Davis writes. "However, the country lacked indigenous supplies of nitrogenous and phosphatic fertilizers necessary for the high yields of its crops, central not only to human nourishment but also to the feeding of German livestock. Even domestic production hinged on the availability of imported fertilizers." Bread and potatoes -- staples of the German diet -- were in short supply almost immediately, causing public opinion to turn quickly against the war.
The growing discontent among the people sparked massive street demonstrations in which women played a major part. One police officer, according to Davis, "described a scene of 'thousands of women' seeking potatoes, adding that 'all women as well as men find the government guilty,' of brooking these circumstances." Participants in protests over the lack of milk, butter and other dairy products were also identified by police and other officials as "women, women of little means, and women of the working classes."
This unrest was widely reported in daily newspapers within the country and played up in front-page stories throughout Europe, further embarrassing officials. The government was forced to give attention to those who formerly held little political clout, and it distracted them from the war, says Davis. "This violence at home affected the social politics as much as what happened on the battlefield," she contends.
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