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German Rations at the Front:
A
snapshot of what the German Soldier consumed
during the Battle of the Bulge
By
Jeff Johannes; edited & additional
information provided by Doug Nash
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Introduction
The
purpose of this article is to examine what type of
sustenance German soldiers ate while on the front
lines in WWII. Instead of giving a broad picture of
what combat rations soldiers were supposed to be
issued, this article will describe, in the words of
Soldaten, what they actually ate to sustain
themselves. To assist in further in narrowing down
this topic, this article will focus on one unit during
one campaign: the 352nd Volksgrenadier Division during
the German’s Ardennes Offensive, known in the United
States as the Battle of the Bulge.
Background
On December 16th, 1944, the Wehrmacht launched its
great offensive, code-named operation Wacht Am Rhein
against the U.S. First Army arrayed along the north-
central German border. The focus of the campaign was
the Ardennes Forest area along the German-Belgian
border. An often overlooked aspect of the campaign was
that of the offensive actions that took place in
northern Luxembourg. To most students of WWII history,
this was the area known as the southern shoulder of
the Battle of the Bulge
One of the German divisions assigned to offensive
operations in the southern flank was a veteran unit,
the 352nd Volks-Grenadier Division (VGD). The 352nd
VGD, formerly the 352nd Infantry Division, had been
decimated during the Normandy Campaign and was
eventually sent back to Germany to be reformed and
rebuilt. In October 1944, the 352nd Infantry Division,
per the new Kriegsstärkenachweisung, or KstN (table of
organization) set forth by the German Army, was
renamed the 352nd Volks-Grenadier Division. The
division was rebuilt with recruits from the
Kriegsmarine, Luftwaffe, and ethnic German conscripts
from occupied lands, such as France, Poland, etc. The
division’s main combat elements were its Grenadier
Regiments (GR), which consisted of GR’s 914, 915, and
916. Interestingly enough, the 352nd VGD’s individual
combat units were upgraded and re-equipped to some
extent with new state-of-the-art combat gear, to
include reversible two-piece camouflage winter suits
and MP-44 assault rifles, known as the Sturmgewehr.
One aspect of
the division, and the German Army in general,
that had not been improved upon or modernized
was that of its ration, or food supply system.
For the most part, the 352nd VGD supplied its
regiments with combat rations and meals using
the same system the German Army had used since
the war the began six years earlier. The food
supply system in December 1944 still consisted
primarily of a company or battalion field
kitchen section that prepared and cooked hot
rations daily, which were then delivered to the
front by various means, such as horse, truck, or
foot.
Once
the rations arrived at the front, they were
quickly doled out to Grenadiers detailed to go
to the rear to pick them up, with the food
usually being deposited into mess kits or
canteens. Other items, such as chocolate, candy,
bread, onions, coffee etc. were placed onto
blankets and then rolled up for easier carrying.
As one will read in this article, you will see
that this system generally failed to deliver the
required amount of food to the Landers on the
front lines during the Battle of the Bulge, with
the result that many of the men went hungry for
days at a time. Another factor that determined
when or how late combat troops drew their
rations was distance – the farther ahead a unit
moved as it attacked, the farther away it got
from its supply section, including the field
kitchen, making the trip for the ration party
carrying the food to the front all that much
longer. These ration parties often arrived late,
if they could find their units, and when they
did, the food was often cold. The
Germans also attempted to develop individual combat
rations similar to those used by the U.S. Army, such
as “C” and “K” rations, but they never reached the
level of perfection of the American’s packaged rations
(For additional information on these rations, refer to
the article: "German Iron
Rations" by Doug Nash or
"The
German Army K-Ration" by Eric Tobey published on
this website). This method of delivering individual
rations was unsuccessful, due either to failures of
the supply system to get these rations to the front,
or that there simply were not enough on hand to issue
to the troops on a regular basis when the normal
method of issuing hot rations failed. Either way, the
German food supply system was totally inadequate to
properly sustain the fighting energy that the troops
needed for this offensive campaign.
So, as the
campaign began, the German food supply system,
including that of the 352nd VGD, was already unable to
keep its Grenadiers adequately fed. As the Battle of
the Bulge dragged on into January, the lack of proper
nutrition, made worse by having to live out in the
open during an uncharacteristically cold winter, took
its physical and mental toll on the average Grenadier.
Tired, hungry, cold, and forced to forage for his
food, only a superman could have continued fighting
with the same enthusiasm and effectiveness that the
German forces displayed at the beginning of the
offensive.
The following is an outline, augmented by eyewitness
accounts, of what the German soldiers ate during this
campaign:
Issued Rations
Grenadiers Ulrich Jonath and Horst Hennig, 2nd
Battalion, GR 914, 352nd VGD, summarized the overall
situation of the German Army‘s attempts to feed its
men during this campaign, including how they were able
to survive the campaign, “Our food supplies were
unsatisfactory. Other than captured American chocolate
and some preserves taken from civilian houses, there
was nothing.” Jonath and Henning also commented on
their inability to cook field rations themselves while
on the line, “Cooking could be done only in rare cases
because of the alert of American Artillery…” This more
than likely referred to the German attempts to simply
build a fire in a stove or fire to heat their rations.
It is assumed that their Esbit Stoves were less
noticeable than open fires, providing some measure of
relief from Artillery fire.
Unteroffizer Wilhelm Stetter, 3rd Company, 1st BN,
GR915, also stated the following about receiving a
much-need issue of soup, ““We had our first warm food
in ten days, pea soup on which the fat was swimming,
for there was plenty of pork fat in the deserted
houses. So we ate, no, we gobbled as much of the fatty
broth as we could hold; serious digestive disturbances
and stomach cramps were to follow two days later.” |
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Hebert Brach, 6th company, 2nd BN, GR916, had this to
say after finally receiving his first German rations
in days, “When we had reached the foot of the hill,
there stood a soldier with a loaf of bread in his
hand, cutting off slice after slice, which our men
practically tore out of his hand, for we had waited
six days for rations, since the supply train could not
be brought closer because of enemy fire. And this
slice of bread was welcome to us; we were practically
starving, and this bread tasted wonderful.”
Friedrich Schmaschke, 3rd Company, 1st BN, GR 916,
commented on what he was issued as cold rations, “The
food service rolled in the next day, and we finally
got warm food again, a welcome change, for in the last
few days we had been given nothing but cold food,
consisting of army bread, rancid butter or margarine,
plus artificial honey and jam.” It appears Schmaschke
fit the mold of a typical soldier, for he made several
key observations concerning rations during the Battle
of the Bulge. For example, Schmaschke also commented
on being re-supplied, with not only rations, but also
some sundry items, “The goods he (company Spiess)
brought along were then distributed to the company.
They were cigarettes, cigars, alcoholic beverages,
soap, combs, razor blades, and chocolate.” At one
point during the campaign, Schmaschke also managed to
scrounge through the bread bags of German dead and
wounded, as he recounted here, “So I went back to
Longsdorf to try to find myself something to eat. A
soldier who talked to me gave me some advice, go up
the road to the farmhouse; all the equipment of the
wounded and dead men is in the stable there. When I
came out of the stable after finding a few pieces of
bread, three iron rations, plus two packages of Schoka-Kola
in the packs of the dead and wounded, one of the tank
men who was looking out his turret hatch, asked, say,
boy, are you hungry? And I said, “Yes, and how! He
threw me a loaf of army bread.”
Captured Rations
The one food item in greatest demand by German
soldiers during the Battle of the Bulge was captured
American Rations. Prior to the Bulge, the Germans were
amazed and awed by the quantity of American rations,
and were equally satisfied by their quality when they
opened them, finding a virtual treasure chest of
nourishment. Hebert Brach, 6th company, 2nd BN, GR
916, was very well pleased upon finding US Rations,
“In the village (Bettendorf) itself, we appropriated
an American food and clothing storehouse in a convent.
Now for a pleasant change we had enough to eat.
Everybody feasted on the tasty U.S. field rations, and
nobody asked where our field kitchen was.” Brach
continued with another account of US rations, “In
Bettendorf the grenadiers had stuffed their pockets,
food bags and assault packs again with food from an
undestroyed US ration dump. In fact, some of them had
even rounded up old baby carriages and milk carts and
filled them with food…That evening, after several
days, the field kitchen finally came to Diekirch to
supply us with hot food, but nobody was hungry, thanks
to the tasty delicacies from much sought
after-American rations. The supply chief himself came
on the scene and was annoyed to have to take the
watery stew away again.
The ever-hungry Friedrich
Schmaschke, 3rd Company, 1st BN, GR 916 also had
something to say about US Rations, “I discovered olive
green packs, similar to naval packs, and I search them
curiously. Out came small brown cartons that I had a
hard time opening for they were coated with wax. They
contained peanut butter, cookies, chocolate, tea,
coffee in powdered form, chewing gum, soft drink
powder, fruit bars, cigarettes, and other such things.
“
Water
For the men of the 352nd VGD and most likely for all
German soldiers in the Ardennes Campaign, obtaining
water and quenching thirst was not only necessary to
survive, but could also be just as hard to obtain as
food. Unteroffizer Wilhelm Stetter, 3rd Company, 1st
BN, GR 915 spoke of simply obtaining water, “My thirst
had become much greater; I imagined I heard a brook
babbling….I climbed out of my hole and went in the
direction where I thought I heard the sound. It was
true; I came to a ravine at the bottom of which was a
brook (the Suessebaach) flowed. I drank two mess kits
full of the cold water. “
Friedrich Schmaschke, 3rd Company, 1st BN, GR 916,
recalled that, at times, simply having water brought
up was a dangerous mission. “The food bearers came
every evening with hot food in thermos containers; our
drinking water had to be fetched from a cistern up on
the plateau. It had been shot up, and the water had
sprayed out of it, gurgling. Since one had to run 150
meters across an open field to reach it, we could only
fetch water at night.”
There were other ways to quench a thirst. Gunter Bach,
15th Company GR 916, attempted, through other means,
to satisfy his need for water, however this lead to
dire consequences for a soldier on the move, “I was
constantly bothered by thirst. So I quickly picked up
a couple of apples that were lying all over the place
under the trees. Although they were covered with frost
and partly frozen, I ate two or three of them quickly
to quench my thirst. The result was that I had bad
attacks of diarrhea shortly afterward.”
Locally Obtained
Rations
During the Ardennes campaign, again particularly
in Luxembourg, many civilians fled their homes
to avoid another round of fighting in their
area. These abandoned residences became the
target of many a hungry Landser looking for
something to eat. Ulrich Jonath and Horst Hennig,
2nd Battalion, GR 914, 352nd VGD, reports of
searching abandoned houses for food, “The only
food supplies that we still received came from
the houses that the civilians had left, where we
obtained food that included everything from
preserves to potatoes and apples to dried and
smoked meat. There was no bread and we got water
by melting ice…”
Friedrich Schmaschke, 3rd Company, 1st BN, GR
916, also recalled a similar search for food,
“In the kitchen of the farmhouse…Hunger slowly
made itself known, and I got the idea of looking
through the massive kitchen cupboard. I found
coffee and, in the bottom drawer, a long loaf of
white bread.”
As far as where or how the individual Landser
carried his food, he usually stuffed it in his
breadbag, the pockets of his uniform blouse and
trousers, as well as this winter combat suit or
greatcoat and perhaps in his rucksack if he had
one. He was limited to what he could carry,
because he still had to carry his ammunition,
grenades, weapon, canteen, and other field
equipment, as well as an additional ammunition
can or two for the squad MG-42. |
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Conclusion
One of the myths of the Germans during the Battle of
the Bulge was that they were a well-equipped war
machine with multitudes of King Tiger tanks, ME-262
Jet Fighters, and legions of well equipped Waffen-SS
and Panzergrenadiers out for blood. As this short
article has proven, the real story is that the German
Army could not even keep its own front line combat
troops adequately fed during the campaign.
If doing a study or recreation of this campaign, based
on a snapshot of the 352nd VGD, one can summarize the
following of what a German soldier had to eat during
the Battle of the Bulge:
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Issued Rations: |
Bread, soup,
margarine/butter, Schoko-Kola, 1 or 2 cans of
Iron Ration meat (at the most). |
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Captured Rations:
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Any type of US
Rations that were issued in Northwest Europe in
1944, primarily “C” or “K” rations, plus
cigarettes, coffee and hot chocolate mix. |
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Local Rations: |
Bread, potatoes,
dried meat, dried apples (This source of rations
appears to be the rarity rather than the norm). |
One can
only question about the overall outcome of this
campaign, in which not only did improved weather
conditions and reinforcements of US Armored and
Infantry Divisions lead to an Allied victory, but
could a lack of food for the average Lander assist in
the defeat of this last great German offensive of
WWII.
Sources:
- The Battle of the
Bulge in Luxembourg, Volume I: The Germans by Roland
Gaul, Schiffer Publishing Company, 1995
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