The Fruits of War and the Benefits of Defeat: Nutritional Science in World War I Germany

This paper focuses on the impacts of food and resource scarcity on ideas about nutrition and bodily health in WWI Germany. It begins with an examination how the wartime nation's chronic food insecurity provided nutritional scientists the opportunity to re-evaluate the daily diet of the average German and the impact of food shortages on national health. It then traces how these scientists joined forces with other health experts to launch a national campaign of dietary reform in response to fears about food shortages and starvation. It concludes by demonstrating how these concerns about food security and national health continued long beyond the 1918 Armistice during Weimar Germany's experiences with continued blockade, occupation, hyperinflation, and population migration --all of which exacerbated the food crisis in postwar Germany. Drawing on a broad array of German war-time and post-war primary sources -- including scientific journals, public lectures, government reports, newspaper articles, and health exhibits -- this paper demonstrates how ultimately the post-war understandings of national belonging and citizenship in Weimar Germany were now firmly infused with new ideas about individual duty to maintain nutrition, fitness, and bodily health.