It is not possible to work productively on an empty stomach - an indisputable fact. It is not in vain that in the hierarchy of needs of Abraham Maslow, the satisfaction of hunger is one of the first places. And it is impossible to win a war without proper reinforcements (we note that during the war, about a hundred orders were issued that concerned only the nutrition of the military). Like, cooks at the front were very cherished. We decided to recall how the field kitchens worked during the Great Patriotic War, what the soldiers ate, what "military" dishes they especially liked.

Eating during the war was important for soldiers: not only because it allowed them to get enough, it was both a short rest and an opportunity to talk with colleagues. If you like, these short minutes were, so to speak, a fleeting return to peaceful life. Therefore, the field kitchens were actually the center of the life of a combat unit (however, the civilian population flocked there from time to time, especially children, who were willingly fed in the field kitchens). "The soldier's commandment: away from the authorities, closer to the kitchen," Lieutenant Alexandrov (aka Grasshopper) thoughtfully noted in the film "Only" old men "go to battle," and he said the absolute truth.

The field kitchen was needed to prepare food and organize meals for soldiers in field conditions, at remote sites, in military units. It often consisted of several boilers (up to four, but there could be only one). The kitchens were heated, of course, with firewood, the water in the boiler boiled in about 40 minutes, a two-course meal for a company of soldiers was prepared for about three hours, dinner - an hour and a half. Favorite dishes prepared in the field kitchen were kulesh (millet soup, with the addition of other ingredients, millet groats and lard), borscht, cabbage soup, stewed potatoes, buckwheat with meat (meat was mainly beef, it was used in boiled or stewed form). These dishes were ideal for camping conditions (in terms of, for example, calorie content), and they were quite simple to prepare in a field kitchen.

According to the annex to GKO Resolution No. 662 of September 12, 1941, the norm No. 1 of the daily allowance of the Red Army soldiers and the commanding staff of the combat units of the active army was as follows:

Bread: from October to March - 900 g, from April to September - 800 g. Wheat flour 2nd grade - 20 g. Various cereals - 140 g. Pasta - 30 g.
Meat - 150 g. Fish - 100 g. Combined fat and lard - 30 g.
Vegetable oil - 20 g. Sugar - 35 g. Tea - 1 g. Salt - 30 g.
Potatoes - 500 g Cabbage - 170 g Carrots - 45 g Beets - 40 g Bulb onions - 30 g Greens - 35 g
Makhorka - 20 g. Matches - 3 boxes (per month). Soap - 200 g (per month).

The daily allowance of the air force flight personnel was increased: 800 g of bread, 190 g of cereals and pasta, 500 g of potatoes, 385 g of other vegetables, 390 g of meat and poultry, 90 g of fish, 80 g of sugar, as well as 200 g of fresh and 20 g of condensed milk, 20 g of cottage cheese, 10 g of sour cream, 0.5 eggs, 90 g of butter, 5 g of vegetable oil, 20 g of cheese, fruit extract and dried fruits. Non-smoking female soldiers were given an additional 200 g of chocolate or 300 g of sweets per month.

In the diet of submariners, 30 g of red wine, sauerkraut (30% of the total diet), pickles and raw onions were always present, as this prevented scurvy and made up for the lack of oxygen. Bread on small ships was baked on land, and on large ships there were special ovens. Crackers were also common, and condensed milk and butter were given as a bite.

Memories of soldiers

“Products were taken out by the assistant commander of the battalion for food supply. He brought them from somewhere on a truck. He distributed them among companies, and I had a field kitchen with three boilers drawn by a horse. At the front near Iasi, we sat on the defensive for several months, and the kitchen was covered in the hollow. There are also three boilers: the first, second and hot water in the third. But no one took boiling water. We dug three-kilometer trenches from the front line to this kitchen. We walked through these trenches. we were hit with shells and mines. They didn’t let us lean out. I never went to that kitchen, but only sent soldiers,” says infantryman Pavel Avksentyevich Gnatkov.

“They fed us just fine. Of course, there were no chops in our diet, but there were always cereals and soups. Both there and there meat. I’ll tell you more, we also received money for each flight. And I know that tankers ", and the infantry was also fed excellently. Yes, sometimes there were interruptions in the delivery of food, but they are constantly on the move. It happened that the field kitchen did not have time for them, and during the battle there is no time for feeding. We were better in this respect "- recalls bomber pilot Alexei Nikiforovich Rapota.

“There could be interruptions in food. True, only when, indeed, we were far off. We broke far ahead, the kitchen lagged behind or did not have time to cook, or the territory was such that it was impossible to drive through. , who is responsible for feeding, will prompt something. I didn’t have to go so completely hungry. Dry rations were given when it was not possible to feed, as expected, with hot food, or if they were going on a hike somewhere. "They put a piece of bacon, then a piece of bread. And an extra ration, it was given to the officers. There was tobacco, cookies, all kinds of canned food. I ate too much of canned food once, it was "pink salmon in its own juice." I ate so much that I got poisoned. After that I couldn't eat it for a long time," says infantryman Igor Pavlovich Vorovsky.

“Food was delivered to us by a field kitchen. In the spring, it was very difficult with the delivery of food, especially when they advanced in the Kalinin region, in marshy places. always got it: sometimes the boxes were carried away to the neutral zone or to the Germans, or into an impenetrable swamp. Then we sat for several days without crumbs in our mouths. In the summer it’s easier. Despite the fact that in the villages sometimes there were no whole houses left, but many hide the grain from the Germans. We looked for it like this: we walked around the gardens and poked the ground with bayonets. Sometimes the bayonet fell into the pit in which the inhabitants stored cereals. We cooked porridge from them, "says Yuri Ilyich Komov.

"It used to be hungry. But this is when the kitchen falls behind! And so - a field kitchen is assigned to each battery. So they fed normally. But, it happened, the rear lagged behind. Come to the kitchen. "Come. If the cook had time to cook something for dinner - well, if he didn’t have time - then eat dry rations. It happened that we shot chickens and other living creatures. And if you find a German warehouse, it was not forbidden to take canned food or something else They didn’t pay much attention to it, they didn’t consider it looting. You need to feed the soldier, "said artilleryman Apollon Grigoryevich Zarubin.

“If we were standing somewhere in the second line, then the food was bad. Up to the point that I myself personally unloaded frozen potatoes from the wagons. And not only potatoes: there were frozen carrots and beetroots there. that there was always bad food, although little, but they brought it in. And in the tank corps it became easier, dry rations were issued for three days, or even five during a breakthrough. The T-34 will pass, the truck will get stuck. I also want to add: in 1942, we in the tank troops lived on the same Lend-Lease dry ration. So American help helped out. Lend-Lease became a big help to the front, "says tanker Nikolai Petrovich Vershinin.

From the memoirs of veterans of the Great Patriotic War: "Our cook made various soups, and sometimes main courses, which he called" vegetable confusion "- it was unusually tasty. At the end of the war in the spring of 1944, maize (corn) groats arrived, which were sent by the allies. Nobody knew what to do with it. They began to add it to the bread, which made it brittle, quickly stale and caused complaints from the soldiers. The soldiers grumbled at the cooks, the cooks scolded the allies who melted maize for us, with which the devil himself would not understand. Only our cook did not grieved - he took a half-monthly norm, sent an outfit to the steppe, asking them to collect almost everything in a row - quinoa, alfalfa, shepherd's purse, sorrel, wild garlic, and prepared delicious in taste and beautiful in appearance corn pies - cakes with greens, bright, yellow on the outside and burning green inside. They were soft, fragrant, fresh, like spring itself, and better than any other means, they reminded the soldiers of home, the imminent end of the war and peaceful life. And two weeks later ovar made hominy (coolly brewed porridge made from cornmeal, for consumption instead of bread, hominy is made thicker, and can be cut into pieces). Almost the entire battalion got acquainted with this national Moldavian dish. The soldiers were sorry that they sent too little maize, and would not mind exchanging wheat flour for it. Even simple acorn coffee, our cook tried to make it tastier and more aromatic by adding various herbs to it."

On the eve of the anniversary of the Great Victory, we want to talk about things, albeit mundane, everyday, but, nevertheless, helping our army to live and win. It will be about the food supply during the Great Patriotic War.

The military hard times that began on June 22, 1941 required the reorganization of the entire logistics Red Army and the navy in general and the food supply in particular. It must be said that changes in the food supply service over the years Great Patriotic War were constantly produced. During the war years, about a hundred orders were issued NK Defense on food and fodder supply, of which almost half (more precisely, 42 orders) fell on 1942, when the system for providing the front with food was almost completely formed.

Military Science in the Service of Nutrition

The orders were different: both passing, and really "turned over" the activities of the services of clothing, food and fodder supply to the troops. And such orders were often based on scientific research.

It is worth noting that throughout the war years, research work on the food supply of troops in combat conditions continued, where the experience of the rear and supply services in individual operations was summarized, recommendations were made to improve this work, instructions and instructions were drawn up. V Logistics and Supply Academy in 1942-45, 60-70 topics were in the plans for research work. True, the plan was actually carried out only by 50-60%. But, nevertheless, the very names of the works performed in the most difficult years for the country (“Food supply of the Red Army in wartime”, “Work of the rear of the division in the encirclement” - 1941; “Organization of food and cooking in the field ”, “Food supply of a rifle battalion and regiment”, “Use of local funds based on the experience of the Great Patriotic War” - 1942), speak of their relevance.

But if the work of the first two years of the war covered mainly the organization of the military rear, then the topics of research in subsequent years concerned more with the operational rear.

Orders and resolutions

First orders People's Commissariat of Defense 233, 247 and 279 with the same name “Introduction of food supply standards in military units”, hastily published in July-August 1941, were frankly “raw” and, at times, contradicted each other. At the same time (more precisely, on July 12, 1941), order No. 232 was issued, which, among other things, stipulated the norms for supplying prisoners of war.

Slightly off topic, but I can't help but point out this fact. If the completely unclassified orders issued less than a month before the start of the war (No. 208 “Introduction of food supply standards for the Red Army in peacetime” and No. 209 “Introduction of food supply standards”), one can still try to explain it by masking aggressive plans comrade Stalin , then the hasty "food" orders of July-August clearly contradict the theory V. Suvorov about the preparation the USSR to attack Germany .

The truly developed standards for the supply of military personnel were set out in a resolution State Defense Committee No. 662 of September 12, 1941 "On the norms of the food supply of the Red Army." On the basis of this resolution, by order No. 312 of September 22, they were put into effect. On the same day, order 313 of the NPO "On streamlining the supply of food and fodder to the Red Army" was issued. That is, the supply standards and the procedure for providing military personnel with them were determined.

By decree GKO four categories of food rations were established for the land army: for the Red Army soldiers and the commanding staff of the combat units of the army in the field; for the Red Army and the commanding staff of the rear of the army; for Red Army soldiers of combat and spare parts who are not part of the active army; for Red Army soldiers of guard units and Red Army soldiers of rear organizations. Four categories of allowances were also determined for the flight crew of the Air Force: for combat crews of aircraft crews of the army in the field; for the technical staff of the Air Force of the active army; for combat crews of crews that are not part of the army in the field; for the technical staff of the Air Force, which is not part of the army in the field. Cadets, hospital, sanatorium and dry rations were approved. As well as the NZ ration, which could only be used in the event of an emergency landing of the aircraft.

A Red Army soldier on the front line was to receive 900 g of bread a day from October to March and 800 g from April to September, 150 g of meat and 100 g of fish, 140 g of cereals, a pound of potatoes, 170 g of cabbage, etc., including 35 g sugar, 30 g of salt and 20 g of shag. In winter, a little extra fat was supposed to be. Yes, another 200 grams of soap per month.

The middle and senior commanding staff (the concept of "officers" was not yet practiced at that time) received the so-called additional ration, but, to be honest, it was not so great. Well, what, for example, did 25 grams of cigarettes represent per day? 4-6 pieces, well - a dozen, if the trigger of the cigarette sleeve is very small.

The established norms of allowances during the whole war were basically not revised and certainly were not reduced. Only for the flight and technical staff of aviation in August 1942 they were changed.

And I can't help mentioning two more orders. Order No. 244 of August 12, 1942, ordered that non-smoking women be given chocolate or sweets in exchange for "tobacco rations." And then they realized that they forgot about non-smoking men, and from November 13, by order No. 354, sugar, sweets or chocolate were already issued to all non-smokers. However, the front-line soldiers remember that there were few of those who changed smoke and sweets.

Tribunal for malnutrition

Were the food norms fulfilled in the conditions of the front? No doubt not always. And the commissaries could not be blamed for this in all cases either. And the troops, after all, found themselves surrounded, and the wagon trains did not always keep up with the unexpectedly rapidly advancing units. Of course, there were also cases of negligence, and the supply of troops Leningrad Front could not reach the prescribed due to the blockade. Depending on the position of the food supplies in the besieged hero city, the soldiers in the trenches received from 70 to 75 percent of the established ration, and those who were a little further from the front line used to have half the "rear" allowance. However, from mid-February 1942, the supply of soldiers approached the norm, and from spring-summer, according to the memoirs of front-line soldiers, it became more organized.

In better than blockade conditions, poor food supply was sometimes punished, sometimes severely. There is a famous story when Military Council of the Bryansk Front under the command of lieutenant general F. I. Golikova in the spring of 1942, sent to the tribunal the head of the food supply of the 61st rifle division, captain Likhachev for the fact that 72 soldiers of the division ended up in the hospital due to exhaustion. And only a detailed examination of the arrived representative General Directorate of Food Supply saved the captain: the fighters “weaned”, as it turned out, during the journey to the front.

But the head of the rear Kalinin Front major general P. E. Smokachev the tribunal could not be avoided. In the spring of 1943, a difficult food situation developed on a number of fronts. In particular, in one division Voronezh Front for four days, 500 g of bread were given out, but the soldiers did not receive hot food and other products. The situation was even worse in the above Kalinin Front: there for a long time only a half ration of food was issued, and even then with such replacements that there was no question of more or less full nutrition. For example, meat was 100% replaced with egg powder. To feed the horses, they generally removed straw from the huts left by the peasants. The main reason for this situation was the spring thaw. But the bungling of the commanders, who did not make the proper supplies on time, was enough.

As a result of the checks, GKO Decree No. 3425 of May 24, 1943 and NKO Order No. 0374 of May 31 of the same year “On the results of checking the situation with the nutrition of Red Army soldiers on the Kalinin Front” were issued. It was by this order that the said general was put on trial, and a number of military leaders received serious penalties. At the same time, the front commander was also replaced.

But the main thing in this order is not punitive measures, but the fact that those members of the military councils of the fronts were specifically named there (among which there were far from the last people in the party and state elite of the country: Khrushchev , Zhdanov , Bulganin , Mehlis ), who were entrusted with the organization of the rear and the logistics of the troops. The need for thorough training of "military food" personnel and army cooks was noted. In the order, the principle of supplying the troops "from oneself" was also indicated for the first time.

Finally, this principle, which placed responsibility for the delivery of materiel to the division on the head of the army rear, for the delivery to the regiment - on the head of the rear of the division, etc., was introduced in June 1943. After the principle "from oneself" acted all the years of existence Soviet army . Hope it works in Russian Armed Forces .

"... on a glass, on our front line"

"People's Commissar's 100 grams" were introduced even before the approval of the final nutritional standards by secret order No. 0320 of August 25, 1941 "On the issuance of 100 grams of vodka per day to front line servicemen of the active army." In fact, these 100 grams should be called "deputy people's commissars", because he signed the order Deputy People's Commissar of Defense lieutenant general of the quartermaster service A. V. Khrulev .

But "one hundred grams" was issued to everyone on the front line only until May 1942. On May 12, the order of NPO No. 0373 “On the procedure for issuing vodka to servicemen of the active army” was issued. According to him, since May 15, 200 grams have already been poured, but not for everyone, but only for "servicemen of the front line units who have had success in combat operations against the German invaders." The rest were allowed to receive vodka only 10 days a year: on public holidays and on the day of the formation of the unit where the soldier serves.

It seems that this order did not cause much pleasure at the front. After all, not everyone was successful, but if not all, then many wanted to drink. Realizing that alcohol restriction is fraught, on November 13, 1942, they issued order No. 0883 "On the issuance of vodka to military units of the army from November 25, 1942." From this date, 100 grams were “returned” to the front line, and military personnel in the regimental and divisional reserve, as well as, for example, builders working under enemy fire, were supposed to receive 50 grams of vodka each. The same amount could, according to the instructions of the doctors, be used by the wounded. On the Transcaucasian Front instead of 100 g of vodka, it was ordered to give out 200 g of fortified wine or 300 g of table wine.

But what happened less than six months later began to resemble the pouring of a “front-line glass” from empty to empty. From May 13, 1943, 100 grams began to be poured only in units leading offensive operations. But then there was a battle Kursk Bulge , and the offensive became general. It turns out that the last order could not be canceled.

The procedure for issuing vodka continued to change until the end of the war. If in the summer vodka was more often "on holidays" or as "combat", then for the winter daily "cups" were introduced to everyone. Which, in general, is right: an extra "warm" in the cold.

When and how were the soldiers fed?

But differently. More precisely, as conditions allowed. If the trenches were under almost constant enemy shelling, then hot meals were delivered in thermoses, most often once and at night. A little further from the front line or during a lull in the fighting, they always tried to organize two or three hot meals a day. Satiety or, conversely, the scarcity of a real diet largely depended on the conditions of the place. It is not worth judging how the fight against looting among the civilian population was actually conducted now, but front-line soldiers note that when there were battles in "rich" countries, for example, Hungary or Austria , and the official food procurement went better, and the cooks obviously “confiscated” something, as a result, the soldiers ate more “calorie-dense”.

“The fight was short. And then they jammed the icy vodka, And I picked out someone else's blood with a knife from under my nails, ”wrote the poet-front-line soldier Semyon Gudzenko . They didn’t try to drink before the battle, because, as they understood: the one who “accepted” had more chances to die in it. Yes, and command A. V. Suvorova : “To drink before the battle - to be killed” - they still remembered. So they drank after it. And then, after the fight, there was more alcohol: some of the vodka was also drunk, which was intended for those who did not return from the battle. Although those who distributed it, tried to hide the 100 grams “saved” in this way.

Most of the time, not for myself. The front-line soldiers recalled that they had their own traditions, when, for example, they “poured” well to the entire reconnaissance group that captured the “language”. They disinfected the wounds with alcohol, poured alcohol into the throat of the wounded so that they could overcome the pain shock. And how is it easier for the commander to agree, for example, with his neighbors-artillerymen about fire support? What's the best way to meet an inspector?

Yes, and to eat, or rather, even to eat up, albeit relatively, they sought not before the battle, but after. It was believed that with an abdominal wound, there is a better chance of surviving when it (the belly) is empty.

Military equipment for peaceful purposes

It is worth mentioning that during the war years, not only new tanks and planes appeared, but also new camp kitchens, including trailer ones, and new field bakeries equipped with ovens. "GROIN" .

True, due to the fact that the country's industry mainly worked for armaments, very few materials were allocated for food service equipment, and new food equipment began to arrive only at the end of the war. And these were new army mills, and new mobile meat processing plants, and new KPN conveyor ovens, which for a long time "served" at mobile bakeries in Soviet army .

Rear vertical

Over the years Great Patriotic War there was a vertical of the rear of the Armed Forces of the country, which lasted until the very end Soviet Union and his army and navy. It began to be formed by the GKO resolution of July 1, 1941, when Main Logistics Directorate of the Red Army and rear management in the fronts and armies. And although Main Logistics Directorate in 1943 it was abolished, its functions were distributed to the Main Directorates of various types of supply, they were subordinate Head of Logistics of the Red Army (simultaneously to the deputy People's Commissar of Defense) and his headquarters, i.e. the vertical remained. By the way, the Main Directorate of Food Supply in 1944 was transformed into the Directorate of Food Supply of the Quartermaster's Office.

During the war years, the activities of the troops in food procurement operations were streamlined, rules were established for the existence of subsidiary farms at military units, and much more was done that defines the concept of "food supply" of the armed forces.

Containers and packaging of military food

In accordance with the theme of our industry, it is worth saying a little about the containers in which food was delivered to the front. Moreover, even in this seemingly simple question there is a lot of unclear and false information. For example, I read on the Internet that under the bottling of “combat 100 grams”, they allegedly launched a special plant that produced vodka in “scoundrels”. Stupidity. More than 90% of vodka during the war was poured into barrels, because almost the entire stock of utensils was destroyed in its first months. And the remaining “alive” or manufactured bottles went for filling "Molotov cocktail" . The packaging lines of many of the remaining distilleries were occupied with these products. Yes, and in general, how to deliver from afar, without beating, vodka in glass? And there is nothing to say about a special plant - were there no more worries?

Vodka barrels were made from wooden staves, and by the end of the war, metal ones began to appear. Yes, and vodka itself was not always vodka in the consistency we are used to: more often alcohol was brought to the front, and foremen at the front line already brought it to the required percentage.

If you are a little interested in the food supply in the years Great Patriotic War, it’s hard to believe the frames of films where brave officers famously drink pure alcohol, biting it with stew from a freshly opened can. It was not very accessible to junior officers. According to the norms, the commanders were allowed only 50 grams of canned fish per day in excess of the soldier's ration. And the “lend-lease” stew was used to replace meat and only in a common boiler. If it’s a trophy… Then the words from the film about the post-war times come to mind: they respected the commander and for the fact that “I didn’t eat my extra ration under the covers.”

In general, the food received under Lend-Lease amounted to somewhere within ten percent of the total need. Soviet Armed Forces. And the main packaging material for American and other imported products was tin.

And for our food, the main container was a bag. It delivered almost everything and to almost all places. They even managed to hang bags of food under the wings of aircraft when large landing groups were dropped behind enemy lines.

About the heroes of other times

According to logistics specialists of our time, in the years Great Patriotic War up to 76.8 million people were on state provision with bread and food. Most of them were soldiers.

In general, among the soldiers of the rear Armed Forces during the war years Heroes of the Soviet Union became 52 people and 30 - Heroes of Socialist Labor .

During Patriotic War about 31 thousand employees of the food service were awarded orders and medals. And there are among them The hero of the USSR. This is the senior cook of the 91st tank regiment of the 21st mechanized corps, a Red Army soldier I. P. Sereda . The title was awarded on August 31, 1941. The feat was accomplished in the battles near the city Dvinska (Daugavpils) . Having discovered a German tank that had broken through to our rear, the cook climbed onto the armor, and with blows from the butt of the ax he had, he damaged the machine gun, after which he began to strike both the gun barrel and the turret armor. The enemy tankers were confused, and the fighters who came to the rescue captured the crew.

Eternal glory to the Heroes! And even those inconspicuous, who prepared and delivered food to the soldiers in the trenches under bullets and explosions.

In the era of world wars and mass armies, the possibilities and specific ways of meeting the food needs of military personnel depend on the level of economic development, the type and type of the armed forces themselves, the theater and duration of hostilities, and many other factors. In a number of studies on the history of the Great Patriotic War, the organization of the food supply of the Red Army in 1941-1945. is considered mainly from the point of view of a more general problem of development of the rear of the Armed Forces1. As a rule, no attention is paid to the perception of the norms in force by the fighters and commanders of the Red Army, it is not shown “what and how a Soviet soldier happened to eat,” and in the publications of documents. According to the correct remark of A. Z. Lebedintsev, a participant in the war, “one gets the impression that Soviet soldiers are something like angels who don’t drink, don’t eat, and don’t go before the wind”2. Only in recent years, with the abolition of censorship restrictions, memoirs, diaries and letters of ordinary war veterans began to be widely published, containing descriptions of individual experience in solving the food problem, often significantly different from what is said in the works of military historians.

The Red Army entered the war, guided by the norms of daily allowance, approved by the Decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks N 1357 - 551ss of May 15, 1941 and the order of the NPO of the USSR N 208 of May 24, 1941. However, with the outbreak of war food opportunities. The USSR was drastically reduced. It was not possible to take out a significant part (more than 70%) of mobilization stocks from the western regions. In 1941 - 1942. The country has lost almost half of the cultivated area. Before the war, 84% of sugar and 38% of grain were produced in the occupied regions3. Most of the rural able-bodied male population and equipment was mobilized to the front. All this led to a reduction in yields. In 1942, the gross grain harvest amounted to only 38%, and in 1943 - 37% of the pre-war level. Only in 1944 did the restoration of agricultural production begin, but even in 1945 its gross output amounted to only 60%, and agricultural production - 57% of the total.

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level 4. In addition, the number of citizens who were on the state food supply increased due to the introduction of the rationing system.

As a result, the old standards had to be cut. New norms for the food supply of the Red Army were established on September 12, 1941 (Decree of the State Defense Committee of the USSR N 662; put into effect on September 22 by order of the People's Commissar of Defense N 312)5. According to nutritional standards, it was planned to divide the Red Army military personnel into four categories. As before the war, the basis of the diet was bread, cereals and pasta, potatoes and vegetables, meat and fish, as well as tea, sugar, salt, spices and -; spices (tomato paste, pepper, bay leaf, vinegar, mustard). Additionally, certain categories of servicemen received butter, eggs and dairy products, canned food, cookies and fruits.

The norms of the daily allowance of the Red Army soldiers and the commanding staff of the combat units of the army included 800 g of rye wholemeal bread (in the cold season, from October to March - 900 g), 500 g of potatoes, 320 g of other vegetables (fresh or sauerkraut, carrots, beets, onions, greens), 170 g of cereals and pasta, 150 g of meat, 100 g of fish, 50 g of fat (30 g of combined fat and lard, 20 g of vegetable oil), 35 g of sugar. Soldiers who smoked were supposed to have 20 g of shag daily, monthly - 7 smoking books as paper and three boxes of matches. Compared to pre-war norms, only wheat bread, replaced by rye bread, disappeared from the main diet6.

The nutritional rations for other categories of servicemen have been reduced. In the rear of the active army, the Red Army soldiers and the commanding staff began to receive less by 100 g of bread, by 30 g - cereals and pasta, by 30 g - meat, by 20 g - fish, by 5 g - fat, by 10 g - sugar7.

The middle and higher commanding staff were additionally allocated 40 g of butter or lard, 20 g of biscuits, 50 g of canned fish, 25 cigarettes or 25 g of tobacco per day and 10 boxes of matches per month. Taking into account the climatic and weather conditions, from December to February, the troops of the first line of the Karelian Front were given an additional 25 g of lard, and in areas unfavorable for scorbutic diseases, one dose of vitamin C. If it was impossible to organize the supply of troops with hot food, they were given dry ration 8.

An increased ration with an obligatory hot breakfast relied on the Air Force flight personnel, which was also divided into four categories. The daily allowance of combat crews of aircraft crews of the army has increased compared to pre-war norms - up to 800 g of bread (400 g of rye and 400 g of white), 190 g of cereals and pasta, 500 g of potatoes, 385 g of other vegetables, 390 g of meat and poultry, 90 g of fish, 80 g of sugar, as well as 200 g of fresh and 20 g of condensed milk, 20 g of cottage cheese, 10 g of sour cream, 0.5 eggs, 90 g of butter and 5 g of vegetable oil, 20 g of cheese, fruit extract and dried fruits ( for compote). The daily allowance of the technical staff of the Air Force units of the army, on the contrary, has decreased9. Aircraft were also supposed to keep a reserve in case of accidents and forced landings (3 cans of condensed milk, 3 cans of canned meat, 800 g of biscuits, 300 g of chocolate or 800 g of cookies, 400 g of sugar per person)10.

For those undergoing treatment in hospitals and sanatoriums, special dietary norms were provided11.

In general, for the majority of the soldiers of the Red Army, with the exception of the Air Force, daily rations on the eve and during the Great Patriotic War were inferior in calories to the nutritional standards in the imperial army, when in rational

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one soldier until 1917, the main role was played by meat and bread. For example, before the First World War, a soldier received 1 pound (410 g) daily, and with the outbreak of the war, 1.5 pounds (615 g) of meat. Only with the transition to a protracted war in 1915 did the meat ration decrease, and meat was replaced with corned beef12. At the same time, the desire for a more balanced diet, the presence in the daily ration of fresh vegetables, fish and spices that prevent scurvy can be considered an advantage of the food supply in the Red Army. The total energy value of the daily allowance of certain categories of soldiers of the Red Army varied from 2659 to 4712 calories (see table).

Nutritional value of the main food rations of the military personnel of the Red Army13

Type of ration Composition (grams) Calories (calories)

Proteins fats carbohydrates

Combat units 103 67 587 3450

Logistics of the active army 84 56 508 2954

Combat and spare parts that were not part of the active army 87 48 489 2822

Guard units and rear establishments 80 48 458 2659

Flight units of the active army 171 125 694 4712

Hospital 91 69 543 3243

Kursantskiy 101 70 562 3370

The established norms of allowance were not revised during the war, but were supplemented: non-smoking female soldiers were given 200 g of chocolate or 300 g of sweets per month instead of tobacco allowances (order dated August 12, 1942); then a similar norm was extended to all non-smoking servicemen (order dated November 13, 1942)14.

In reality, the approved nutritional standards could not always be met. Serious nutrition problems awaited recruits in training camps and spare parts. The memoirs of L. G. Andreev describe the path of a 19-year-old volunteer “to the front”, which began in August 1941 from the Tesnitsky camps 28 km from Tula: “The first days, when they still lived at home fatness, the portions seemed large. Soon hunger came, it did not leave us all the time we were in the camp.” The next stage was the camps near Noginsk. Significantly smaller than the Tesnitskys, they left an impression of greater order, and the author notes as the most significant fact that “they fed better.” After an 800-kilometer march, Andreev ended up in the barracks of Kazan for two months, where, according to him, a lot could be endured (cold, fatigue), “if we were fed.” The food reminded me of the Tesnitsky camps: “the same spoonful of the second and a bad first for lunch, one thing for breakfast, a spoonful of the second for dinner, then, however, it disappeared. They also invented such a thing: if the soup is cooked with meat, then on that day they give out 50 g less bread ... And such food - with a colossal load, with almost complete absence of rest! We were depleted steadily and catastrophically. When changing the position of the body, the head was spinning, more and more tired in the classroom. When they took the oath, one fainted from exhaustion”15.

Half-starved existence was the norm in many military schools. Painful memories of the conditions of being in a military school

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L. Rabichev kept it in Birsk in November 1941 - December 1942: “Officers of all ranks of the school repeatedly repeated Suvorov's famous catchphrase: “It is hard in teaching - it is easy in battle!” Breakfast, apparently, was included in the concept of teaching. The foreman allocated five minutes for breakfast. Two cadets cut several loaves of black bread into slices. They were in a hurry, and the slices were thick for some, thin for others, it was a lottery, there was no time to argue and object. There was already a soup made of half-rotten sprats on the table, the sprats had to be swallowed with the bones. For the second, everyone received millet porridge”16.

However, not only the cadets were poorly fed, but also the commanding staff, who were in the reserve. A check of the nutrition of political workers who were in the reserve of the Main Political Directorate of the Red Army at the Military-Political School named after M.V. Frunze showed that it was "organized very badly." The canteen of the voentorg “was a run-down tavern full of rubbish and dirt. The quality of the prepared food is low.” There were only 44 plates for more than two thousand people who ate, as a result “incredibly large queues were created in which political workers stood idle for many hours every day, receiving breakfast at 15-16, lunch at 4-5 in the morning, and there was no time left for dinner. All this led to the disorganization of the internal order in the reserve and the disruption of the training sessions of political workers”17.

Talk about the day when it will be possible to “get to the front at any cost” was massively distributed among people who constantly lived from hand to mouth. A significant part of the cadets and "reserves" wrote reports about early dispatch to the front. Many fighters who were in training camps relentlessly thought about the same: “I was drawn to the front - I believed that he would change his life, and for some reason it seemed that he would return home”18. It seemed that physical suffering and exhaustion must have some meaning. And the only meaning was the salvation of the Motherland.

The notion that food was better at the front than at the rear is confirmed by a considerable amount of evidence. For the most part, servicemen from the active army reported home good and even excellent food, hearty, full meals. “We eat and drink as if we were not at the front, but at home,” wrote artilleryman M. Z. Levert in September 194119. The main “key” to this optimistic position, prevailing in almost any period of the war, lies in the desire of the front-line soldiers to reassure their relatives about their situation. In this line of behavior, the general unpretentiousness, which was entrenched in the behavior of Soviet people even in peacetime, was also manifested. Due to their unpretentiousness, the habit of "tightening their belts" and in less harsh conditions, the military, for the most part, readily considered the military ration (especially when it met the established standards) as sufficient and satisfactory.

Military personnel allowed themselves to speak frankly about food problems in special circumstances, for example, when they sent a letter with an opportunity or with a parcel. “This letter will not pass through the slingshots of censorship, as I am sending it in a parcel. You can be honest about something, - A.P. Popovichenko wrote to his wife. - They feed us badly, three times a day around, running, water and buckwheat, liquid soup, and tea, bread 650 gr. I feel a breakdown, but it's not just me alone, but all of us, both commanders and fighters. The fighters, of course, openly talk about dissatisfaction with such food. They also resorted to the help of their native language. For example, signalman P.T. Kemaykin wrote to his parents in Mordovia in the Moksha language that he often had to “stay hungry”21.

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But even at the front, the conditions and forms of bringing rations to the soldier were often far from the established norms. An inspection of the organization of food in units and formations of the North Caucasian Front at the end of June 1942 showed that “food is prepared monotonously, mainly from food concentrates. There are no vegetables in parts if they are in the front warehouse.” In the 102nd separate engineering and construction battalion, food was distributed directly to the fighters, and each cooked for himself "in bowlers, cans of canned food, and even in steel helmets." In some parts, “due to negligence in the timely delivery of food, as well as due to incorrect orders from officers of the command staff,” the Red Army did not receive food at all. The commander of the 105th Infantry Regiment, Lieutenant Colonel Ivakin, “ordered two bulls received for slaughter for meat to be used in. buckle and do not score. The fighters did not receive meat that day, and no fish was given to replace it”23.

At the end of 1942, a power check was carried out in the 8th Guards Rifle Division. Major General I.V. Panfilov. In the order of the Deputy People's Commissar of Defense, Colonel-General of the Quartermaster Service A. V. Khrulev, issued following the results of the check, it was noted: “Food is cooked poorly. Its taste and calorie content are very low, the cooks are poorly trained, and work with them is not organized. The kitchens are unsanitary and unequipped. Kitchen utensils are sorely lacking, and what is available is kept dirty.” For October-December 1942, the nutritional value per day per soldier ranged from 1800 to 3300 calories: “Due to the negligence and lack of control of the army apparatus, the division systematically received less food.” In October, 2.1% of meat, 63% of fat, 46% of vegetables, 4% of sugar, 2.5% of salt, 26.8% of tobacco were not received. In November - 20.3% meat, 52.4% fat, 8.7% cereals, 42.6% vegetables, 29% tobacco, 23.5% sugar, 3.7% salt. In December, the 30th Guards Rifle Regiment did not receive 6.1 daily rations of bread, 17 of meat, 20 of fat, 19 of flour, 2.5 of sugar, 29 of vegetables, and 11 of shag. The same was observed in other parts of the division, although at the front warehouse and the army base "there was a sufficient amount of products of all assortments, which made it possible to uninterruptedly supply food to all formations of the front." The soldiers of the 238th, 262nd rifle divisions of the Kalinin Front during the march for 3-5 days received 200-250 g of crackers per day. The soldiers of the 32nd and 306th rifle divisions and the 48th mechanized brigade did not even receive bread for five days. As a result of acute starvation, many soldiers developed various diseases, and in the 279th Rifle Division in November 25 people died due to malnutrition24.

“Actually, the military ration was very good,” N.N. Nikulin wrote about his front-line experience 60 years later, “900 g of bread in winter and 800 in summer were supposed to be per day, 180 g of cereals, meat, 35 g of sugar, 100 g of vodka during the fights. If these products reached the soldier without intermediaries, the soldier quickly

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became smooth, contented, gratified. But, as always, we have a lot of good undertakings, ideas, plans, which in practice turn into their opposite. Food was not always available. In addition, it was stolen without shame and conscience, whoever could. The soldier had to keep quiet and endure.”25

Indeed, the cause of malnutrition was often the abuse of rear services. Sometimes commanders robbed their own fighters. In December 1942 and January 1943, major shortcomings were established in the expenditure, storage and accounting of food and fodder in formations and units of the Voronezh and Southwestern Fronts. In December 1942, the head of the administrative and economic department of the 60th Army, senior lieutenant of the commissary service, Estrup, issued 1768 kg of bread, 532 kg of cereals, 697 kg of meat, 210 kg of sugar, 100 kg of fat in excess of the norms for the nutrition of staff of the headquarters. In November-December 1942, the head of the administrative and economic department of the 6th Army, the captain of the commissary service, Menaker, and his deputy technician-commander of the 1st rank, Semyonov, overspent 755 kg of bread, 54 kg of sugar, 250 kg of canned food, 132 kg of biscuits, 69 kg fat26.

“There is a law of war that is not new: / In retreat - you eat plenty, / In defense - this way and that, / On the offensive - on an empty stomach”27. This rule, deduced by the hero of A. Tvardovsky's poem "Vasily Terkin", is basically confirmed by the front-line soldiers, although there is no need to talk about the abundance of food in the initial period of the Great Patriotic War. It was during the retreat that the practice of applying for direct food aid to the inhabitants of those settlements through which they passed was firmly entrenched among Soviet military personnel.

In defense, the energy costs of the organism themselves were already decreasing, since there were no “attacks, exhausting marches, dashes and crawls”28. The kitchens were nearby, and during the time on the defensive, the soldiers got used to the regularity and even fullness of the portions. As a rule, on the front line, under constant enemy fire, hot meals were delivered in thermoses, most often once, at night. In the rear or during a lull in the battles, two or three hot meals a day were established, of course, if the quartermaster services coped with their duties. An audit conducted by the Military Council of the Southern Front in June 1942 in the 12th and 18th armies made it possible to establish: “As a rule, soldiers complain about poor quality food, about liquid and monotonous food delivered to them in a cooled state.” In units of the 37th and 56th armies, food also suffered from monotony, and "the Red Army soldiers do not receive greens in all units." In the PTR company of the 1137th Infantry Regiment of the 339th Infantry Division “they drink raw water with sugar instead of tea.” In the 1171st Rifle Regiment of the same 339th Division, “instead of bread, they receive crackers, although there is a full opportunity to provide bread.” In the 689th Artillery Regiment, “every day they are fed barley and millet soup. Food is prepared at 4-5 pm in the rear and brought to positions 6 km away in thermoses by 7:30 pm cold and tasteless”29.

In the offensive, there were objective difficulties for catering: on the marches, camp kitchens and carts could not keep up with the troops advancing forward. Cooking on the go was difficult, and fires were not allowed at night. As a result, dry rations were distributed to the fighters, which sometimes turned out to be preferable to hot food, since in this case the possibility of food theft was reduced and, according to the front-line soldiers, “everything of ours remained with us.” If, before the attack, the fighters received an “emergency supply” (canned food, crackers, bacon), then “simple hungry soldier wisdom taught: you need to eat all the supplies before the battle - otherwise it will kill you, and don’t try it.”

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buesh!”30. But experienced front-line soldiers, knowing that with an abdominal wound, there is a better chance of surviving with an empty stomach, they tried not to eat or drink before the battle.

Participants in the war also note the differences in the supply of certain categories of military personnel, and above all they recall the additional officer rations. Orientalist I. M. Dyakonov, who served as an interpreter in the political department of the Karelian Front, called the “wonderful” composition of this ration: “By the New Year, I received two cubes in my buttonholes and began to receive an officer's additional ration. It contained, firstly, tobacco, which I bartered: I myself did not smoke. Then there were good canned food (cod liver in oil) and butter, which I melted: the ration was supposed to turn into a parcel for my Leningraders ”31.

The difference in nutrition could depend on the position and personal ideas of the commander of a particular unit. A.V. Pyltsyn describes how the order of nutrition in the officer’s penal battalion, where he commanded a company, changed with the appointment of Baturin as battalion commander: “The new battalion commander also established a new order of nutrition for command personnel while the battalion was out of combat operations. If earlier we all ate from a common soldier's cauldron and only an additional officer's ration distinguished our menu from the contents of the penalty box's cauldrons, now full-time officers ate separately from them, in the so-called "dining room", which was located in a more or less spacious room. Cooked for us separately; I won’t say that it’s noticeably better than in the company camp kitchen, but on the other hand, we no longer ate from kettles, but from aluminum bowls. Since Lieutenant Colonel Baturin had a weakness for milk, he constantly carried a couple of dairy cows with him, and the officers from the "master's" table got coffee or tea with milk. The battalion commander with deputies was prepared separately, and this did not so much affect the quality of the menu as it set a strict distance. “The previous battalion commander Osipov did not strive for such a “distance”, and this did not reduce discipline, combat readiness or combat capability”32.

In this regard, comparisons with the situation in the enemy army, which appeared in memoirs published in recent years, draw attention to themselves: “In the Red Army, soldiers had one ration, while officers received extra butter, canned food, and biscuits. Delicacies, wines, balyks, sausages, etc. were brought to the army headquarters for the generals. The Germans, from soldier to general, had the same menu and it was very good. Each division had a company of sausage makers who made various meat products. Products and wines were brought from all over Europe. True, when it was bad at the front, both the Germans and we ate dead horses”33.

Of course, the state of health depended on nutrition. In the first military spring, which was especially difficult, dystrophics with “zero respiration” were often brought to hospitals. “During the 12-kilometer transition into the March mud, the regiments lost several soldiers who died of exhaustion,” recalled B. A. Slutsky34. Poor nutrition exacerbated chronic diseases of the internal organs (stomach, liver), vitamin deficiency caused the spread of scurvy and night blindness. The diary entries of the mechanical engineer of the tank regiment L. Z. Frenkel (May 1942) report a six-month absence of vegetables (including the most important of them - onions and garlic) in the diet and, as a result, the occurrence of scurvy in soldiers35. Front-line writer D. A. Granin testifies that near Leningrad, he himself and many of his fellow militiamen fell ill with scurvy, their teeth began to fall out: “We inserted them back with our fingers. Sometimes the teeth took root, and it was a joy. You can't chew on gums! The battalion sucked all day

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coniferous antiscorbutic briquettes, it helped a little, strengthened the bone tissue”36.

What a disaster beriberi was, can be seen from the story of L. N. Rabichev. In March 1943, one not particularly reliable soldier of his platoon declared that he "can't see anything around him, he's blind." The fighter was accused of simulation, but the next day 12 out of 40 people lost their sight: “It was a military, spring disease - night blindness. The next day, disaster struck. About one-third of the army went blind.”37 Strange twilight processions, reminiscent of a painting by Pieter Brueghel the Elder, captured the memoirs of N. N. Nikulin: “One soldier led a string of others behind him. With a large stick, he felt the way, and the rest walked in single file, holding tightly to each other. They didn't see anything. These were victims of the so-called night blindness - acute vitamin deficiency, in which a person loses sight in the dark. Night blindness could be treated with fortified butter. But it was plundered, as ordinary oil was plundered. The disease staunchly persisted among the soldiers.”38 They fought with beriberi by introducing vegetables, fish, sprouted wheat into the diet.

The command made efforts to correct the situation with the nutrition of military personnel, the perpetrators were reduced in position and military rank, sent to the tribunal. In the orders of the People's Commissar of Defense, "the facts of poor organization of food for soldiers and a non-Soviet attitude to the preservation and expenditure of food" were repeatedly noted. It was pointed out that the nutrition of the fighters “in a number of units, despite the complete availability of food in warehouses and bases, is poorly organized; there are many cases when thieves and swindlers rob the Red Army soldiers with impunity, giving them less than the prescribed amount of bread, putting in the boiler an incomplete amount of food laid out according to the layout. To improve the nutrition of fighters and commanders, it was necessary to use local opportunities for harvesting vegetables. Military units and formations created their own subsidiary farms, while in some armies the crops reached thousands of hectares39.

The servicemen themselves were looking for their own ways of survival. Traditionally, the soldier sought to be closer to the kitchen. Attire for the kitchen, usually undesirable in peacetime due to the need to perform hard and dirty work, sometimes became the ultimate dream for soldiers in the rear. Describing his two-month stay in the Tesnitsky camps, L. G. Andreev noted that “only two or three times I was full, and even then not for future use - I ate too much. Those were the days of dressing up in the kitchen… we were completely hungry, we ate without thinking about the consequences, we knew that tomorrow the painful feeling would come again. Yes, painful, because you know that you will not satisfy yourself with anything. The Kazan barracks were remembered by him for the fact that “he was not hungry only once in two months: he was in a dress in the kitchen and ate too much, and then he suffered with his stomach”40.

When money was available, fighters and commanders bought food in the military trade system and civilian stores. In the camps near Noginsk, “it was sometimes possible to get bread in a stall, although the queues for it were colossal. I most often used the fact that I had money: I paid, and they got me bread. Cadets of the 2nd Vladivostok Military Infantry School, located in Komsomolsk-on-Amur, while skiing, laid a route not far from the store, the shelves of which were filled exclusively with canned crab. Crabs were flavored with a morning portion of barley or oatmeal porridge41.

Since not everyone had money to buy products, illegal exchange trade began, simple natural transactions took place:

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“On the first day, I could not eat either soup or porridge and changed them to four compotes. It turned out that there was a well-established practice of exchanges. For soup - two compotes, for the second - four, for bread and sugar - the second, or vice versa”42. V. V. Syrtsylin, who was tired of vobla and bream on the way, exchanged them for potatoes at the substations. In the city, having sold potatoes, he bought bread with the proceeds, part of which he immediately exchanged for tobacco43. Having received food for 15 days of travel (sausage, herring, sugar, crackers, tea), junior lieutenant 3. Kleiman, who suffered from a lack of hot food, exchanged half of the issued fish for cereals. Exchange also flourished in the trenches. “Tobacco on crackers, a serving of vodka for two servings of sugar. The prosecutor's office fought in vain with me,” B. A. Slutsky recalled about the “barter trader”44.

The few remaining household items, as well as items of military uniforms, ammunition and equipment, went on sale. S. I. Champanier told his wife: “I am very glad that I got rid of personal things ... Now the bag has become lighter and recovered a little - I drank milk, ate raspberries, cucumbers and onions and everything that can be obtained in the summer in the village. In general, you can make edible things out of sheets and T-shirts and towels, which is sometimes harder to do with money.” M. I. Sorotskin, who was in the study unit in Murom in the autumn of 1942, wrote to his wife: “If it’s not difficult for you and there is an opportunity, Manechka, then send me as much money as you can. Occasionally I buy tomatoes here (30-35 rubles a kilo), milk (40 rubles a litre) and eat. With bread [things] are bad”45. Parcels from home brightened up the front-line menu. Relatives put gingerbread, cookies, sausage, chocolate, sweets, sugar, crackers into them. It was crackers, along with tobacco and cigarettes, that were asked to be sent most often. In conditions when “I wanted to eat all the time,” “smoking dulled the feeling of hunger at least for a short time”46.

Don't forget about sweets. Medical sergeant F. Krivitskaya, who served in a field hospital, wrote to her mother in Moscow: delicious. But if there are long queues, then nothing is needed, and I can do without tasty food. And if you send, then send me honey, emblems and a 16-gon. The only thing that Muscovite F.V. Slaykovsky asked after two months at the front was biscuits and dragees (“not necessary, just treat yourself”)47. However, realizing the difficult economic situation of their relatives, the majority of servicemen either completely refused to send parcels from home, or asked their relatives not to spend money and send products cheaper.

Often fighters and commanders received parcels from people completely unfamiliar to them. What the villagers sent usually consisted of food (a piece of lard or homemade sausage with garlic, dried fruit or a couple of apples, a bun with a baked egg inside - everything was carefully packed in a homespun canvas bag), with the exception of a tobacco pouch and an enclosed letter. Stationery and, as a rule, biscuits were sent more often from the city.

On May 18, 1942, the State Defense Committee of the USSR regulated this form of voluntary assistance by a special decree N 1768-s “On improving the organization of delivery to the destination and streamlining the accounting of gifts received for the Red Army from the population of the country” (announced in the order of the People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR N 0400 of May 20 ). According to the decree, nominal gifts to the Red Army soldiers and commanders, as well as food gifts from the population and organizations intended for certain military units, formations and armies, were required to be “delivered strictly for their intended purpose in

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in accordance with the wishes of the senders. The rest of the gifts were supposed to be sent to front-line and army bases, where individual gift packages were formed from them to be sent to units, subunits and hospitals for issuance to soldiers and commanders. Products left over from the completion of individual parcels, as well as perishable and difficult to process in the field (flour, cereals, meat, fish, vegetable oil, vegetables, dried fruits, wine, spices, laundry soap) should be sent to units of the army as an addition to rations49 .

The diet of front-line soldiers from time to time was replenished with military trophies when it was possible to capture the enemy's camp kitchens or stocks in warehouses. Having successfully attacked the Romanians, A. Z. Lebedintsev’s platoon took possession of the field kitchen with hominy, which the “hungry” liked very much50. N. N. Nikulin recalled with pleasure the “beautiful thing” - dry pea soup in packs (pea concentrate), which came across in warehouses or food trucks abandoned by the Germans. Some of the products were amazing. Such was, for example, “some hybrid of ersatz honey with butter in large briquettes” (Soviet soldiers made hearty sandwiches from it), as well as trophy bread sealed in a transparent film with the date of manufacture indicated: 1937-193851.

V.V. Syrtsylin “grew in gratitude” to the German pilots for inaccurate hits: “Thanks to them - they threw a lot of sausages, bread and chocolates into the trenches, and the hungry German sits in the trench opposite and licks her lips and is angry with her pilots that they are mistaken 52. However, sometimes the opposite happened. It also happened that opponents “peacefully” shared the same product among themselves. This happened, for example, with wild honey, which N. N. Nikulin and his colleague undertook to get at night. Having finished their dangerous undertaking (for this it was necessary to “pull a gas mask over your face, wrap a footcloth around your neck, and put mittens on your hands”), the soldiers saw the Germans standing at a distance: “They also went for honey and politely waited for us to leave.” Similar “impromptu truces” concluded on the basis of hunger or the scarcity of the soldiers’ menu did not prevent the next morning from “tearing each other’s throats and breaking skulls”53. B. A. Slutsky also remembered the episode when representatives of both armies climbed at night for raspberries that had grown in the neutral zone.

Berries are a good addition to the diet. “Raspberries are ripening, whoever does not open his mouth on airplanes can always organize a dessert for himself. We are already running out of strawberries, there is also a fair amount of them here ... ”, wrote V. Raskin in July 1943 from the front line54. Sometimes they even served as the main product: “We eat well, I have already overate on blueberries”55.

Potato served as a universal food in harsh field conditions. “We pick up potatoes in the first garden that comes across and cook them right in a bucket, and then we sit around like gypsies and eat, some with our hands, a knife, a spoon, and some just with a stick.” Soldiers called potatoes “blessed”. Subsequently, they wondered how much they could eat at one time (“what we ate now would frighten me”). “A soldier’s stomach, accustomed to being empty and never filled with miserable “cat” portions, at the first opportunity showed an amazing ability to stretch to incredible sizes”56.

Fishing also often helped out. According to P. V. Sinyugin, during the offensive near Taganrog in February 1943, the rear fell far behind, and the soldiers swelled from hunger. Life improved in the spring - not only because they began to bring food: “Next is the Dead Donets River, the fish went, pike perch. We assigned one person from each crew to fish. At-

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the guys are dragging fish in duffel bags, the cook will cook, but there is no salt. Although unsalted, they ate fish”57.

It was necessary to use ears, lime buds, acorns, various surrogates for food. During the construction of roads and bridges on the pass near Tuapse at the end of 1942, the political instructor of the 150th engineer-barrage battalion A. Kobenko wrote in his diary that when food ran out, the soldiers ate chestnuts, dried fruits and hazelnuts for more than a week58.

It was especially difficult for those who smoked: “Smokers suffered a lot, they could exchange both bread and vodka for smoking. What they were doing? Horse droppings, which had been lying around for two years, had already rotted all over, collected with a needle, wrapped and pulled, smoked. We are with them, with smokers, and swore, and we will fill the face to wean. It was hard for smokers. Better not give him bread than a cigarette.”59

Many sources mention the use of horse meat, often obtained illegally (healthy horses were slaughtered). Slutsky claimed that this practice spread in the first military spring: “I still remember the sweaty sweet smell of soup with horsemeat. The officers cut the horse meat into thin slices, roasted it on iron sheets until it became hard, crunchy, and edible.” In the winter of 1941, N. N. Nikulin, who fought on the Volkhov front, being on the verge of dystrophy, cut down “steaks” with an ax from a frozen thigh of a gelding dug out from under the snow60.

The consumption of horse meat became widespread in the spring of 1943. The Soviet troops fought fierce offensive battles, and the food echelon, as L. N. Rabichev recalled, was 100 kilometers behind. On the third day of the hungry existence, signalmen and gunners drew attention to the corpses of people and horses that had died the previous autumn and winter: “While they lay covered with snow, they were, as it were, mothballed, but under the hot rays of the sun they began to rapidly decompose. They removed boots from the corpses of people, searched in their pockets for lighters and tobacco, someone tried to boil pieces of shoe leather in pots. The horses were eaten almost entirely. True, at first they cut off the top layer of meat covered with worms, then they stopped paying attention to it. There was no salt. They cooked horse meat for a very long time, the meat was tough, rotten and sweetish, apparently disgusting, but then it seemed beautiful, inexpressibly tasty, it was satisfying and gurgling in the stomach”61.

When the soldiers were on the "pasture", everything was used: both the fish stunned by the explosions of shells, and the stolen chickens. Lebedintsev described an incident at the junction station Mineralnye Vody, where trains with evacuated cargo and livestock had accumulated. Since the train with the pigs of some state farm “no one fed anything” and “it was just right for the pigs to eat themselves in the cars without food and water”, Lebedintsev and a friend decided to beg the piglets to give them a piglet. Having received a refusal, they shot a piglet (“having saved them from hunger torment”), and the girls from nearby houses cooked it, adding new potatoes from themselves directly from the garden62.

In most cases, such “requisitions” were a necessity that allowed those who, without hesitation, to give their lives for their homeland, to survive. Flour obtained during a raid on a railway car saved the lives of L. G. Andreev and his comrades who got to the front (they cooked stew from it all the way), those lives that a few weeks later were given in the battle for the dilapidated village of Chernaya near Staraya Russa (18 people remained from the battalion). Shortly before this battle, being very close to the front line, frozen and hungry, half-delirious, the soldiers of the ski battalion in a few moments “pulled the groups into loaves”

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zovik filled with bread. The driver shouted, pulled the tarpaulin, but could not do anything63.

On the roads of war, soldiers often had to eat according to the so-called "grandmother's certificate", that is, rely on the kindness and disposition of the local population. Exhausted by hunger, in fact they had no other choice but to "beg". Sometimes the owners themselves took the initiative and shared their supplies with the soldiers. However, military personnel recall other cases. V. Izvekov describes how in October 1941, in retreat, the soldiers of his unit dispersed to their homes in a nearby village in search of food. Although he was “disgusted by begging,” Izvekov passed the huts and turned into a well-built house, but was refused by the old owner: “What, did you finish the war, you sons of bitches? Have you gone to fetch? Robbed, robbed a peasant, and now again to him. Great…”64.

However, few dared to refuse such a sharp refusal to armed people, more often such peasants concealed food. Hence the cases when a soldier had to get his livelihood by cunning or otherwise. Once A. Z. Lebedintsev and his friend the owners of the house refused to sell some products. He decided to reload the drum of his revolver: “I took it out and started to knock out empty shells with a ramrod and insert live cartridges. Somehow I didn’t even attach any importance to this, but it had an effect on my grandfather. He immediately got up, went down to the cellar, and brought out half a loaf of bread and lard the size of a bar of laundry soap, and ordered his wife to pour us a bowl of soup. I left money for them, but they did not take it, hoping that, perhaps, some kind hostess would feed their sons. We sincerely thanked the hosts, taking away not only half a loaf of bread and lard, but also warmth in our hearts.”65

According to B. A. Slutsky, a serious improvement in nutrition began “with the arrival of a well-fed, crafty, under-plundered by the Germans Ukraine.” In the summer of 1943, his company refused dinner, “having eaten cucumbers, milk, and honey offered by the peasants hiding in the cellars.” Although the retreat of the enemy was accompanied by the destruction of food (melons were destroyed, cattle were shot), he could not destroy everything. This summer the problem of vegetables and fruits was removed; food departments stopped collecting vitamin nettles for soldiers' borscht: “Near Kharkov, the front was held in melons and vegetable gardens. It was enough to reach out for a tomato, a cucumber, it was enough to kindle a fire to boil corn. A fruit kingdom began near Tiraspol. Anti-tank ditches crossed apple, pear, apricot orchards ... Compote and jelly firmly entered the soldier's menu”66.

Since 1944, in letters and diary entries, changes have been noted related to the improvement of the front-line kitchen, diet, and chefs are praised: he cooks like a soldier, fat, tasty and a lot.” P. L. Pecheritsa mentioned competitions for the best cooking, which were held in the conditions of the front67.

Improved nutrition, its diversity became the subject of letters sent by front-line soldiers from abroad, especially from Germany. Some of them reported a complete absence of food problems in a succinct way, apparently not wanting to stir the imagination of the food-constrained household. Others - with some special courage: "We have already eaten, and we do not want to eat everything"; “We eat lard with lard and snack on pancakes with sweet tea”68. Sometimes the opportunity to eat “the most exquisite delicacies” was noted (for example,

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which, due to the gastronomic inexperience of a serviceman, could mean quite ordinary products), or it was said that “only bird’s milk is missing”69.

Particular attention was paid to meat, which was not consumed very often by the majority of Soviet citizens even in civilian life. V. N. Tsoglin wrote to his sister “from the house of a runaway Hans”: “The cow was slaughtered and we are training to see who can cook better. At first, you won’t believe it, ten people ate 9 kg of meat”70. H. Idelchik, senior lieutenant of the medical service, H. Idelchik, spoke in a letter from Germany about the daily unlimited consumption of poultry and meat (“chickens, cold, pork are already boring”). Lieutenant Z. Kleiman reported that the soldiers of his battery, while camping in a German village, "eat as much meat as they like - they put a whole cow into the cauldron." Such drastic changes in the diet caused concern to physicians. The staff doctor complained that the rear soldiers, following the line of least resistance, overloaded the rations with huge portions of meat and wine, threateningly degenerating tissues72.

There is evidence of direct satiation. “In the winter of 1944/45, quite often the infantry overturned the kitchens, dumped mounds of porridge on the dirty snow - even though they put 600 grams of meat per person into the porridge, and not 37 grams of who knows what.” It is not surprising that Soviet soldiers “shared food without further ado” with large German families73. Food stocks made it possible to exchange for things (for example, in Vienna, for five loaves of bread, you could buy a ladies' gold watch), sent by parcels to your homeland. Of the products, chocolate and sugar were usually included in the parcels.

The officer corps was especially chic abroad. According to an eyewitness, during their stay in Vienna, “breakfasts, lunches and dinners consisted of several dishes and the most delicious products, they were served on real porcelain, we used silverware, and only wonderful Czech beer was sold for a purely symbolic payment with occupation money in crystal glasses ... Officers and civilian employees ate together, which resembled not just a dining room, but, as it were, a restaurant with waitresses. At dinner at army headquarters, appetizers were served on china and silver, and only French champagne was drunk. A.P. Popovichenko also recalled Vienna on the day of the May Day celebration: “The head of the rear, Colonel Karpov, as they say, ruined Vienna, but delivered such wines and snacks to the banquet that we could not even dream of, not only in wartime, but, perhaps, , and in peaceful days!” A stunning banquet in honor of the Victory Day was “celebrated” in a mansion near Waidhofen75.

According to B. A. Slutsky, in 1945 the Soviet soldier managed to recover to a certain extent, “feed himself” and “eat meat, which was enough for many months of the recovery period”76. For some time after the end of the war, trophy foods played a significant role in the army ration. This is evidenced, for example, by the letters of private V. N. Tsoglin, who continued his service on the 1st Far Eastern Front in the summer of 1945: We still have cattle from Prussia and other various trophies.” It is noteworthy how the author explained the deterioration of the nutrition situation at the end of autumn: “Food has become poor, but it should have been so. Trophies don't last forever. Not a self-assembled tablecloth.” Actually, these words reflect the well-known readiness of the Soviet people to meet the inevitable difficulties; it seems quite normal to him that the prosperity of the “trophy period” will necessarily be followed by the usual problems with food, which is confirmed by the phrase from the

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Kabrsky letter: “They say that a soldier’s stomach will digest a chisel. If there is no bread, we will use carpentry tools”77.

During the war, the Soviet soldier had to endure many hardships, not the least of which was “starving life” or real hunger. The consumption rate for men of military age is 2600 - 4000 calories per day. The energy value of the established nutritional norms for servicemen of the active army met this standard. However, the real state of the food supply depended on a number of factors: the period of the war, the location of the troops, the intensity of hostilities, the establishment of military rear services, the time of year and weather and climatic conditions.

Even more difficult was the situation with the food of the military personnel of the logistics institutions. Already the norms of their daily allowance were minimal and did not always correspond to the nature of the load, especially in spare and construction parts. With long-term nutrition of personnel according to the rear norm, diseases from exhaustion spread. For example, in parts of the Trans-Baikal Front in 1943-1944. alimentary dystrophy has become widespread.

A proverb attributed to Frederick II categorically states: "The army marches on its belly." However, the testimonies of participants in the Great Patriotic War cast doubt on its justice. One of the most outspoken belongs to the poet and guard major, who went through the war from beginning to end, Boris Slutsky, who opened the chapter “Genesis” of his autobiographical prose “Notes on War” with the following statement: “The lower standard of living of pre-war life helped, but did not damage our passion ... We overthrew the army, which included chocolate, Dutch cheese, sweets in the soldier's rations”79.

“Soldier’s prose” by L. G. Andreev, written by him a year after returning from the front, even at the height of the war, preserved the terrible experience of the experience: “We are not even hungry - a hungry person is clearly aware that he wants to eat, in whom this desire separate from him; hunger has penetrated all of us, has become a state, a permanent property of thoughts, feelings, sensations, has ceased to be clearly felt, having merged entirely with us”80. The memory of the military famine did not let go of the front-line soldiers even decades later.

Notes

The article was prepared within the framework of the project “The Great Patriotic War in the Historical Memory of the South of Russia” of the Program of Fundamental Research of the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences “Fundamental Problems of Modernizing a Multiethnic Macroregion in Conditions of Growing Tensions” for 2012-2014.

1. Bokhanovsky I. N. Supply of troops with bread in the field. Cand. diss. Kalinin. 1945; Soviet rear in the Great Patriotic War. Book. 1 - 2. M. 1974; The role of the rear of the Soviet armed forces in achieving victory in the Great Patriotic War. L. 1975; Rear of the Soviet Armed Forces in the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945. M. 1977; and etc.

2. A. Z. LEBEDINTSEV and Yu. A. Mukhin, Fathers-commanders. M. 2004, p. 87.

3. Voznesensky N. The military economy of the USSR during the Patriotic War. M. 1947, p. 42.

4. Great Patriotic War. 1941 - 1945. Encyclopedia. M. 1985, p. 645.

5. Russian archive. T. 13 (2 - 2). M. 1997, p. 95 - 102.

6. Ibid., p. 97.

7. Ibid., p. 98 - 99. The Red Army soldiers of combat and spare parts outside the active army, compared with the pre-war rations and rations of combat units, relied on 150 g less bread, 50 g of cereals and pasta, 75 g of meat, 10 g of fat, 10 g Sahara. However, on

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20 g increased the norm of fish and 100 g of vegetables. For Red Army soldiers of guard units and rear establishments, the daily rations of food became less by 200 g of bread, 60 g of cereals and pasta, 75 g of meat, 10 g of fat, 10 g of sugar, but more by 100 g of potatoes. The cadet daily ration was also reduced and consisted of 400 g (500 g in winter) of rye and 300 g of wheat bread, 140 g of cereals, 150 g of meat, 80 g of fish, 500 g of potatoes and 285 g of other vegetables, 50 g of butter and 15 g other fats, 50 g sugar. In addition to tea, the ration included dried fruit compote and surrogate coffee.

8. Ibid., p. 96. In the army - 500 g of rye crackers, 200 g of concentrated millet porridge, 75 g of concentrated mashed pea soup, 100 g of semi-smoked sausage, replaced by 70 g of bacon, 150 g of roach or cheese, 100 g of dry fish, 113 g of meat canned food, 200 g of herring, 35 g of sugar, salt and tea, outside the active army - less than 100 g of crackers, 20 g of semi-smoked sausage, 10 g of bacon, 30 g of vobla or cheese, 20 g of dry fish, 40 g of herring, and canned meat was not provided.

9. Ibid., p. 100 - 101. 800 g, and in winter 900 g, rye wholemeal bread, 180 g of cereals and pasta, 250 g of meat, 90 g of fish, 610 g of potatoes and 410 g of other vegetables, 30 g of butter, 25 g of other fats , 50 g sugar. Combat crews of crews outside the active army and flight crews who were in the barracks were given 400 g of rye and 300 g of wheat bread, 130 g of cereals and pasta, 300 g of meat, 70 g of fish, 500 g of potatoes and 335 g of other vegetables, 60 g butter and 5 g vegetable oil, 60 g sugar, 100 g milk, 20 g cottage cheese, 10 g sour cream, 20 g cheese, dried fruits and fruit extract. For the technical composition of Air Force units outside the active army, hot breakfasts were provided, the norms of which included 100 g of wheat bread, 30 g of cereals or pasta, 200 g of potatoes and vegetables, 100 g of meat, 30 g of butter, 20 g of sugar. Smokers were given 25 cigarettes of the 1st grade or 25 g of tobacco per day, 10 boxes of matches monthly.

10. Ibid., p. 96.

11. Ibid., p. 101 - 102. The hospital ration contained less bread (600 g, including 300 g of wheat), cereals and pasta (130 g), meat (120 g) and fish (50 g). It also included 450 g of potatoes and 285 g of other vegetables, 50 g of sugar, dry or canned fruit, 200 g of milk, 40 g of cow butter and 15 g of other fats, 25 g of cottage cheese, 10 g of sour cream, 100 g of juice or berry-fruit extract. For convalescents, the norm of bread was increased to 800 g (including 400 g of wheat). The sanatorium ration included 500 g of wheat and 200 g of rye bread, 110 g of cereals and pasta, 160 g of meat, poultry and smoked meats, 70 g of fish, 400 g of potatoes and 500 g of other vegetables, 200 g of fresh milk, 50 g of sugar, 25 g sour cream, 10 g cottage cheese, 45 g cow's and 5 g vegetable oil, dried fruits, coffee and cocoa.

12. OSKIN M. V. Russian army and the food crisis in 1914 - 1917. - Questions of history, 2010, N 3, p. 144-145.

13. Rear in the Great Patriotic War. M. 1971, p. 191; and etc.

14. Russian archive. T. 13 (2 - 2), p. 285, 368.

15. ANDREEV L. G. Philosophy of existence. War memories. M. 2005, p. 61, 89, 92.

16. RABICHEV L. “The war will write off everything”, memoirs, illustrations, documents, letters. M. 2008, p. 76-77.

17. Russian archive. T. 13 (2 - 2), p. 373.

18. ANDREEV L. G. Uk. op., p. 98.

19. Save my letters ... Sat. letters and diaries of Jews during the Great Patriotic War. Issue. 1. M. 2007, p. 57, 81, 85; issue 2. M. 2010, p. 80.

20. Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History (RGASPI), f. M-33, op. 1, d. 369, l. 14.

21. Letters from the war. Sat. documents. Saransk. 2010, p. 165.

22. RGASPI, f. M-33, op. 1, d. 1400, l. 40.

23. Russian archive. T. 13 (2 - 2), p. 273-274.

24. Ibid. T. 13 (2 - 3). M. 1997, p. 29, 36.

25. Nikulin N. N. Memories of the war. SPb. 2008, p. 61.

26. Russian archive. T. 13 (2 - 3), p. 90-91.

27. TVARDOVSKY A. T. Vasily Terkin. Terkin in the other world. M. 2010, p. 105.

28. PIL'TSYN A. V. Penalty kick, or How an officer's penal battalion reached Berlin. SPb. 2003, p. 154.

29. Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, f. 12 A(2), op. 6005, d. 96, l. 144, 178.

30. Nikulin N. N. Uk. op., p. 156, 210.

31. DYAKONOV I. M. Book of memories. SPb. 1995, p. 541.

32. PIL'TSYN A. V. Uk. op., p. 182 - 183.

33. Nikulin N. N. Uk. op., p. 54.

34. Slutsky B. A. Notes on the war. In the book: Slutsky B. A. About others and about yourself. M. 2005, p. 29.

35. Save my letters ... Vol. 2, p. 26.

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36. VANDENKO A. Bottom of the Great War. - Results, 2010, N 18 (725), p. 52.

37. RABICHEV L. Uk. op., p. 104.

38. Nikulin N. N. Uk. op., p. 61.

39. Russian archive. T. 13 (2 - 3), p. 167, 36, 319.

40. ANDREEV L. G. Uk. op., p. 61-62.

41. Ibid., p. 78; PYLTSYN A. V. Uk. op., p. 21-22.

42. RABICHEV L. Uk. op., p. 76-77.

43. Heroes of patience. The Great Patriotic War in the sources of personal origin. Sat. documents. Krasnodar. 2010, p. 87.

44. Save my letters ... Vol. 1, p. 162; Slutsky B. A. Uk. op., p. 29.

45. Save my letters ... Vol. 1, p. 88; issue 2, p. 165.

46. ​​VANDENKO A. Uk. op., p. 52.

47. Save my letters ... Vol. 1, p. 115; issue 2, p. 38 - 39.

48. A. Z. LEBEDINTSEV and Yu. A. Mukhin, Uk. op., p. 97-98.

49. Russian archive. T. 13 (2 - 2), p. 234-236.

50. A. Z. LEBEDINTSEV and Yu. A. Mukhin, Uk. op., p. 135.

51. Nikulin N. N. Uk. op., p. 103, 149; PYLTSYN A. V. Uk. op., p. 40.

52. Center for Documentation of the Contemporary History of the Krasnodar Territory, f. 1774-R, op. 2, d. 1234, l. 32rev.

53. Nikulin N. N. Uk. op., p. 166-168.

54. RGASPI, f. M-33, op. 1, d. 1400, l. 43.

55. Save my letters ... Vol. 1, p. 140.

56. Heroes of Patience, p. 99; ANDREEV L. G. Uk. op., p. 179.

57. Memoirs of Pyotr Vasilievich Sinyugin, born in 1924, recorded in Maikop by E. F. Krinko on 5.XI.2001.

58. Heroes of Patience, p. 208.

59. Memoirs of Peter Vasilyevich Sinyugin.

60. Slutsky B. A. Uk. op., p. 29; Nikulin N. N. Uk. op., p. 84.

61. RABICHEV L. Uk. op., p. 111.

62. A. Z. LEBEDINTSEV and Yu. I. Mukhin, Uk. op., p. 124.

63. ANDREEV L. G. Uk. op., p. 102 - 103, 126 - 127.

64. The most memorable day of the war. Letters of confession. M. 2010, p. 81-82.

65. A. Z. LEBEDINTSEV and Yu. A. Mukhin, Uk. op., p. 118 - 119.

66. Slutsky B. A. Uk. op., p. 29, 31.

67. Save my letters ... Vol. 1, p. 261; Heroes of Patience, p. 229.

68. SENYAVSKAYA E. S. Women's fate through the prism of military censorship - Military Historical Archive, 2001, N 7 (22), p. 38; Save my letters… Vol. 1, p. 262.

69. Archive of the Scientific and Educational Center (SPC) “Holocaust”, f. 9, op. 2, d. 160, l. 20, 46.

70. Save my letters ... Vol. 1, p. 262.

71. Archive of the SPC “Holocaust”, f. 9, op. 2, d. 195, l. eleven.

72. Save my letters ... Vol. 1, p. 165; Slutsky B. A. Uk. op., p. 32.

73. Slutsky B. A. Uk. op., p. 29; I saw it... New letters about the war. M. 2005, p. twenty.

74. A. Z. LEBEDINTSEV and Yu. A. Mukhin, Uk. op., p. 234, 241.

75. RGASPI, f. M-33, op. 1, d. 369b, l. 40, 42rev., 43.

76. Slutsky B. A. Uk. op., p. 32.

77. Archive of the SPC “Holocaust”, f. 9, op. 2, d. 160, l. 50, 57, 61.

78. Russian archive. T. 13 (2 - 3), p. 268 - 269.

79. Slutsky B. A. Uk. op., p. 28.

80. ANDREEV L. G. Uk. op., p. 71.

Questions of history. - 2012. - No. 5. - C. 39-54

Krinko Evgeniy Fedorovich - Doctor of Historical Sciences, Deputy Director of the Institute for Social, Economic and Humanitarian Research of the Southern Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences; Tazhidinova Irina Gennadievna – Candidate of Historical Sciences, Associate Professor, Kuban State University.

The idea of ​​this material was prompted by a very famous person among military reenactors under the call sign Bublik. A unique person who reconstructs the chef of the Wehrmacht infantry and the only one in Russia who does this in German cuisine that survived the Great Patriotic War.

In general, the kitchen issue is a very delicate issue. It will seem to someone that the presence of ammunition is more important. I agree. But I think that the soldiers of the 6th Army of Paulus, who still had not so much ammunition and shells, but enough, would argue. And so - they ate the last horses and made the Fuhrer a Christmas present. Surrendered. Many are said to have survived.

Let's start with the kitchens. First, from German, of course, it’s good, we talked about the domestic one more than once.

We discussed German and Soviet cuisine behind the scenes for a long time, and this is what we ended up with. For now, by the word "kitchen" we mean a cooking unit.

In a dispute on the topic “who is better”, Soviet cuisine definitely won. The German one was heavier (4 double boilers with glycerin between the walls as a non-stick device) and had one not very convenient archaism. Namely - wooden wheels.

All plans to put the German on the "rubber move" ended in failure. The design of the kitchen itself, with the low blowers of the stoves, did not allow to reduce the diameter of the wheels. And the possibilities of German industry no longer allowed to remodel the kitchen in wartime. She had something to do without field kitchens.

Wooden wheels did not allow transporting the kitchen at a speed of more than 15 km / h. Patency was also not so hot, and the closer to the front line, the more problems there were in the form of craters and other inconveniences. I won’t tell you about how a German woman feels in the muddy Russian clay. To drag it, as the reenactors said at the rate, is still a pleasure.

However, judging by the memoirs, the German chefs didn’t particularly care about this topic, for which they were very “hotly loved” by the soldiers on the front line.

Soviet cuisine back in 1936, according to the decision of Commissar of Defense Comrade Voroshilov, switched to wheels from GAZ-AA. Until that time, the wheels were also wooden, of the cart type.

The fact that the towing speed has increased to 35 km / h is really nothing. As the horses dragged the kitchen for the most part, they continued. Trucks have always had more important things to do. Another thing is that it has become easier to drag the kitchen on such wheels both in terms of effort and in terms of cross-country ability. And this is an important point.

For the closer the kitchen can drive to the front line, the more chances the soldiers have for a hot lunch. If the conditions did not allow, then the food that we had, that the Germans had, was delivered by carriers to the front line. And here it is clear that a thermos is a good thing, but ... The only question is how much distance the carriers had to overcome. And under what conditions.

But in general, the Germans were not very good at feeding. We will not compare the grams of food issued per soldier in the Red Army and the Wehrmacht, it is more interesting how those who prepared food from them disposed of these grams.

After studying a bunch of materials, I have compiled a list of the most common dishes of German field cuisine, which I will introduce.

In general, the food system in the Wehrmacht had a number of differences from ours. First of all, it is worth noting. that there was no difference in the nutritional standards for soldiers, officers and generals. This is indirectly confirmed in his memoirs by Manstein in his “Lost Victories”: “Naturally, we, like all soldiers, received army supplies. Nothing bad could be said about the soldier’s soup from the field kitchen. But the fact that we day after day for dinner they got only soldier's bread and tough smoked sausage, which was rather difficult for the older of us to chew, probably was not absolutely necessary.

The breakfast of a German soldier consisted of bread (350 grams) and a mug of coffee.

Dinner differed from breakfast only in that, in addition to coffee and bread, the soldier also received a piece of sausage (100 grams), or three eggs, or a piece of cheese and something to spread on bread (butter, lard, margarine). Eggs and cheese - if available, mostly canned sausage was used.

The soldier received the bulk of his daily ration for lunch, which, in combat conditions, again became more like dinner.

The most common soups: rice, bean, canned vegetables, pasta, semolina.

Second courses: goulash, roast pork or beef. There are references to chops and cue balls, you can believe it, but it's definitely not at the forefront.

Garnish. Everything is sad here. For the Germans. Boiled potatoes 7 days a week. From 1.5 kg, if only potatoes, and 800 grams, if peas and carrots were attached to it.

Celery salads, kohlrabi cabbages, I can imagine anywhere, but definitely not on the Eastern Front.

I did not find any fish in the infantry menu at all. Only once a week a jar of canned fish.

But it was like a stationary menu. That is, not at the forefront, but on vacation or when understaffing. That is, when placed at some base, but not at the forefront.

Plus how it was used. There are also nuances.

In combat conditions, the German soldier received the "Normal food for the war" (Verpflegung im Kriege).

It existed in two versions: a daily ration (Tagesration) and an untouchable ration (Eiserne Portion).

The daily ration was a set of food and hot food given out daily to a soldier for food, and the second was a set of food partly carried by the soldier with him, and partly transported in the field kitchen. It could be spent only on the orders of the commander if it is not possible to give the soldier a normal meal.

The daily ration (Tagesration) was divided into two more parts: cold food (Kaltverpflegung) and, in fact, hot food (Zubereitet als Warmverpflegung) from the above menu.

The daily ration is issued to the soldier once a day in its entirety, usually in the evening after dark, when it becomes possible to send food carriers to the near rear to the field kitchen.

Cold food is given to the soldier in his hands, and he has the opportunity to put them in a bread bag. Hot food is given, respectively, coffee in a flask, cooked second course - potatoes (pasta, porridge) with meat and fat in a pot. The place of eating and the distribution of food for food during the day, the soldier determines independently.

It seems nothing, but it turns out that the German had to carry all this stuff on himself. Or store it in a dugout, in the hope that no one will gobble up its one and a half kilos of boiled potatoes.

But that's not all. Each Wehrmacht soldier also had two NZs: a full untouchable ration (volle eiserne Portion) (hard crackers - 250 gr., canned meat - 200 gr., soup concentrate or canned sausage - 150 gr., natural ground coffee - 20 gr.) .

At the company field kitchen, two such complete rations for each soldier should have been available. If it was impossible to provide the field kitchen with the products of the usual daily ration, the commander could give an order either to issue one full untouchable cold ration for a day, or to cook a hot dish from canned food and soup concentrate and brew coffee.

In addition, each soldier had one reduced untouchable ration (gekürzte Eiserne Portion) in a bread bag, consisting of the 1st can of canned meat (200g) and a bag of hard crackers. This ration was consumed only by order of the commander in the most extreme case, when the rations from the field kitchen were used up or if food delivery was not possible for more than a day.

On the one hand, it seems that the German soldier was better provided with food than ours. The fact that he had to constantly carry some of them with him, and a fair amount, I don’t know, doesn’t seem to me a good thing.

If the Russian artillerymen or mortarmen "figured out" the kitchen and both sides were engaged in this matter), then at the very least the chances of living were better than those of our fighters.

On the other hand, somehow everything does not look very rational, to be honest. A soldier, in addition to his main duties, has a very important (and try to argue!) Business in his head, namely how to save food and when to use it. And if everything is more or less normal with the first, then in the conditions of winter, specifically, the Russian winter, problems begin. Although reheating in bad weather is still entertainment.

Yes, it is worth noting here that soups in the German system at the forefront, as it were, were not provided at all. It was customary for the Germans to withdraw soldiers from the front line, there - please, but in the trenches hot meals were provided only with second courses.

And here the field is unplowed for various problems with stomachs. Chronic constipation, indigestion, gastritis and catarrh. This problem was so great that there were entire battalions in the reserve army, where soldiers suffering from chronic stomach diseases were sent. Up to the point that in October 1942 they were reduced to the 165th reserve division stationed in France. Later, in July 1944, it was renamed the 70th Infantry, but it was never able to fight. Until November 1944, she stood in Holland, where she surrendered to the Allies.

Let's move on to the Soviet side.

Here I will rely not only on documents, but also on the personal memories of the participants.

Speaking about food at the front line, the picture is as follows: in the Red Army, positions were provided for the issuance of hot food twice a day - in the morning (immediately after dawn) and in the evening after sunset.

Everything except bread was served hot. Soup (shchi, borscht) was served both times, the main dish was most often porridge. After the next meal, the soldier had no food left with him, which freed him from unnecessary problems, the danger of food poisoning and heaviness.

However, this scheme also had its drawbacks. In the event of interruptions in the delivery of hot food to the trenches, the Red Army soldier remained completely hungry.

NZ was. It consisted of a pack of crackers (300-400 grams) or biscuits, cans of canned meat or fish. Despite all the efforts of the command, it was not possible to force the Red Army soldiers to carry an emergency supply of food. NZ “flew away”, because war is war, and if lunch is not on schedule ...

Menu. Here, of course, diversity is not like the Germans.

Bread, which is the head of everything. The Germans had one view for all occasions. In the Red Army, according to the norms, 4 types of bread were baked: rye, wheat sour, white sieve, rye custard and rye-wheat. White, of course, did not go to the front line.

In addition, there were rye and wheat crackers, as well as wheat biscuits "Tourist", "Arktika", "Military Campaign".

First meal.

Kulesh. It is difficult to determine whether it is the first or the second, it depends solely on the amount of liquid in it. Prepared everywhere, in all branches of the military.

Borscht. In the plural, because there were three official types of them, different according to the recipe. "Ukrainian", "Navy" and just borscht.

cabbage soup. Fresh vegetables, sauerkraut, greens.

Soups. Fish, not fish soup, of course, but from fresh fish or canned food, from concentrates (pea, pea-millet), rice, pea, with pasta, pickle.

Second courses.

It is clear that porridge. "Schi and porridge - our joy." Kashi were prepared from millet, buckwheat, barley, rice, peas, wheat and oats. The menu seemed to include pasta, but my grandfather, who started the war in 1942 near Voronezh and ended in 1947 in Western Ukraine through Prague, does not remember pasta. “There were noodle soups, but we didn’t like them. And rice did not complain. Not greedy…”

Kashi, moreover, were mostly not thick. It is clear why. So that there are no locking problems, and not out of economy. The cook could well have played from the kitchen to the trenches for “not enough soup”, so everything was mostly normal here.

Tea and coffee were not spoiled in the trenches. Again, I will refer to the memories, “they spoiled me when there was a lull, when the cook had the opportunity. And so, if the cauldron has turned up the cheek, and even not on canned food, but with meat, and porridge when it’s normal ... You can also drink some water. ”

Let me remind you that the kitchen was for two boilers ... Shchi and porridge are more important than tea, really.

Vegetables in the form of salads, like the Germans, of course, were absent. But all available types of vegetables (potatoes, beets, cabbage, carrots, onions), as well as pickles were present in soups. Which, in general, leveled the problem of vitamins, if there was one.

If we compare the calculations, then the cuisine of the Red Army was more diverse. Local implementation is also a complex issue, but here you need to look at the result. A hungry and weak soldier is not a soldier at all. And unequivocally, in this the Soviet system was much more effective than the German one.

It is also worth mentioning the hospital ration here. It was much more diverse and higher nutritional standards than at the forefront. It is noteworthy that the hospital ration of the Wehrmacht was almost twice as low as the usual soldier's ration.

It's about the attitude of senior leadership to the wounded. The Soviet command obviously believed that the wounded should be quickly returned to duty, or, in any case, improve his health with better nutrition. The Germans treated their wounded as if they were parasites.

Based on these figures, the question arises - is the commonplace assertion that Stalin did not give a damn about losses and soldier's lives cost him nothing? If so, then why waste scarce food on the wounded, if they can be put on the rations of the rear, or even completely halved?

But the fact that in the last weeks of the Stalingrad cauldron, Field Marshal Paulus ordered not to give out food for his wounded at all - this is a fact repeatedly confirmed by German sources.

What are the conclusions? And none in particular. Our system was better than the German one, that's the whole story. The “Aryan civilization” lost even the battle for the stomachs of the soldiers to the “Eastern barbarians”. It was not from a good system that the Germans rushed to loot in the villages.

The Wehrmacht “had the right” to confiscate food from the local population in order to improve the provision of its soldiers in excess of the established norms. However, it remains unclear what share of the seized food was to be accounted for and sent to Germany, what was to be transferred to the centralized provision of the troops located in the given territory, and what part of the food the military units could seize without accounting.

There is no doubt that the robbery of food from the local population was officially allowed, this is confirmed by a large number of documents.

In war, I will tell you, all the time you want to sleep and eat.
If with the first it turns out differently for everyone, then in the second there is some uniformity.
It is about this relative uniformity of 68 years ago that there will be a tale.
(I put down the heading "mythology" because food in all cultures is a deeply symbolic, and not just a utilitarian process, always emotionally colored in perception, which means it has an essential myth component).

Germany, as Moltke the Elder and Schlieffen had already decided for themselves, was unable to fight not only on two fronts, but also for a long time. Due to the banal inability to supply their armed forces with food produced on the territory of either the Second or Third Reichs. Therefore, it was necessary to feed the soldiers sparingly, and to fight quickly. This I knew.

But what I found in the norms of food allowances for Wehrmacht personnel ...

Catering in the Wehrmacht had a number of differences from what I was used to from the experience of the Soviet Army. For example, no differences were established between the food allowances of soldiers, non-commissioned officers, junior and senior officers, and generals. Field Marshal E. Manstein clearly writes about this in his book "Lost Victories" (in notes dating back to 1939):
“Naturally, we, like all soldiers, received army supplies. Nothing bad could be said about the soldier’s soup from the field kitchen. But the fact that we received only soldier’s bread and hard smoked sausage for dinner every day of us was quite difficult, probably not absolutely necessary."

Another unusual phenomenon for me was that the breakfast of a German soldier (we are talking about food in peacetime and in wartime, but not in positions) consisted of only a piece of bread (about 350-400 grams) and a mug of coffee without sugar. Dinner differed from breakfast only in that, in addition to coffee and bread, the soldier also received a piece of sausage (100 grams), or three eggs, or a piece of cheese and something to spread on bread (butter, lard, margarine).
The soldier received the bulk of his daily ration for lunch, which consisted of meat soup, a very large portion of potatoes, often just boiled (one and a half kilograms) with a fairly large portion of meat (about 140 grams) and a small amount of vegetables in the form of various salads. At the same time, bread was not given out for lunch.

The norm for the issuance of food by the Wehrmacht Ground Forces per day as of 1939 for units located in the barracks (it should be noted that in German sources all norms are given per week, below they are all recalculated into more familiar daily norms. So where it turns out very little for one serving - the issuance did not occur daily):
Bread................................................. ...................... 750
Cereals (semolina, rice) .............................. 8.6 g.
Pasta................................................. .............. 2.86
Meat (beef, veal, pork) .............................. 118.6 g.
Sausage................................................. ................. 42.56
Lard bacon .............................................................. ............... 17.15
Animal and vegetable fats .............................. 28.56
Cow butter .................................................................. ....... 21.43
Margarine................................................. .............. 14.29
Sugar................................................. .................... 21.43
Ground coffee................................................ ......... 15.72
Tea................................................. ....................... 4gr. (in Week)
Cocoa powder ............................................... ......... 20gr. (in Week)
Potato................................................. ............. 1500
-or beans (beans) .............................................. 365
Vegetables (celery, peas, carrots, kohlrabi) ........ 142.86
-or canned vegetables ......................... 21.43
Apples................................................. ................... 1 PC. (in Week)
Pickles................................................ ..... 1 PC. (in Week)
Milk................................................. ................. 20g (per week)
Cheese................................................. ....................... 21.57
Eggs................................................. ...................... 3 pcs. (in Week)
Canned fish (sardines in oil) .................... 1 can (per week)

Nutrition in combat conditions is arranged differently. The soldier received the "Normal food for the war" (Verpflegung im Kriege)

It existed in two versions - the daily ration (Tagesration);
- inviolable diet (Eiserne Portion).

The first was a set of food and hot food given out daily to the soldier for food, and the second was a set of food partly carried by the soldier with him, and partly transported in the field kitchen. It could be spent only on the orders of the commander if it is not possible to give the soldier a normal meal.

The daily ration (Tagesration) was divided into two parts:
1- Foods served cold (Kaltverpflegung);
2- Hot meals (Zubereitet als Warmverpflegung).

The composition of the daily diet:

cold food
Bread................................................. ...... 750
Sausage or cheese or canned fish..... 120 g
Sausage, regular or canned
Jam or artificial honey .................... 200 g
Cigarettes................................................. ..7pcs
-or cigars..............................2pcs.

Fat (lard, margarine, butter).................60-80 g.
Eggs, chocolate, fruits are additionally issued according to availability. There are no rules set for them.

hot food
Potato................................................. .1000
-or fresh vegetables .................................250 g.
-or canned vegetables .............. 150 g.
Pasta.....................................125 g
- or cereals (rice, pearl barley, buckwheat) ........... 125 g.
Meat................................................. ............250 g.
Vegetable fat ....................................... 70-90 g.
Natural coffee beans ............................... 8 g.
Surrogate coffee or tea ............................... 10 g.
Seasonings (salt, pepper, spices) ............................... 15 g.

The daily ration is issued to the soldier once a day in its entirety, usually in the evening after dark, when it becomes possible to send food carriers to the near rear to the field kitchen. Cold food is given to the soldier in his hands and he has the opportunity to put them in a bread bag (here I understood why in German ammunition such an item is a bread bag. Everyone has it). Hot food is given - coffee in a flask, cooked second course - potatoes (pasta, porridge) with meat and fat in a pot. The place of eating and the distribution of food for food during the day, the soldier determines independently.

The complete untouchable ration (volle eiserne Portion) consisted of:
Rusks hard .......................... 250 g.
Canned meat ........................200 g
Soup Concentrate...........................150 g
-or canned sausage .......... 150 g.
Natural ground coffee .............. 20 g.

At the field kitchen, two such full rations are transported for each soldier. If it is impossible to provide the field kitchen with products of the usual daily ration, the commander can give an order either to issue one full cold ration for a day, or to cook a hot dish from canned food and soup concentrate and brew coffee.

In addition, each soldier has in his bread bag one reduced untouchable ration (geuerzte Eiserne Portion - "iron portion"), consisting of one can of canned meat (200g) and a bag of hard crackers. This ration is consumed only by order of the commander in the most extreme case, when the rations from the field kitchen are used up or if food cannot be delivered for more than a day.

Among other things, it is not forbidden to improve the nutrition of soldiers "at the expense of local food resources", but only outside the imperial territory. In the occupied and allied territories, purchased food must be paid either at local prices (for allied territories) or at prices set by the German command (for occupied territories). On the territory of the USSR, the seizure of products is carried out as part of food requisitions, against receipts from unit commanders in the rank of officer. Products seized from the local population to feed the troops against the tax in kind of the local population (there is also such a one - but this already applies to sources of centralized supply) do not go.

The daily ration at the front in terms of calories exceeded the peacetime ration and amounted to 4500 kcal / day. against 3600, but was simpler in composition. For example, it completely lacks sugar, milk, eggs, fish, cocoa. This does not mean that the soldier did not receive these products. Most likely, as far as possible, various products not provided for by the norms, mentioned in peacetime rations, were also issued at the front - if any were found in the kitchen. But the diet includes tobacco products, which in peacetime the soldier was obliged to purchase at his own expense.

Let's move on to what and how they ate on the other side of the front. The norms for the Red Army (rank and file) and commanders (officers) differed.

The dietary norms for Red Army soldiers (the main norm for the Ground Forces), which existed before the start of the war (from NPO order No. 208-41g.) And according to which they were fed until September 1941:

1 Rye bread ............................................... ..... 600 gr.
2 Wheat bread from flour of the 2nd grade ..................... 400 gr.
3 Wheat flour 2 grades .................................. 20 gr.
3 Groats different ............................................... .... 150 gr.
4 Pasta-vermicelli ............................... 10 gr.
5 Meat.............................................. ............... 175 gr.
6 Fish .................................................. ............... 75 gr.
7 Pork lard or animal fats .................. 20 gr.
9 Vegetable oil ........................................ 30 gr.
10 Sugar................................................... .............. 35 gr.
11 Tea .................................................. ................. 1 gr.
12 Salt for cooking .......................... 30 gr.
13. Vegetables:.
. potato................................................. ...... 500 gr.
. fresh cabbage or sauerkraut .......................... 100 gr.
. carrot................................................. ......... 45 gr.
. beet................................................. ........... 40 gr.
. onion................................................ ... 30 gr.
. roots. greens, cucumbers ................................... 35 gr.
. Total ................................................. .............. 750 gr.
14 Tomato paste.............................................. ....... 6 gr.
15 Bay leaf.................................................... .0.2 gr.
16 Pepper .................................................. ............. 0.3 gr.
17 Vinegar .................................................. .............. 2 gr.
18 Mustard powder ......................................... 0.3 gr.

Appendix
to GKO Decree No. 662 dated 12.9.1941
Norm No. 1
daily allowance of the Red Army and the commanding staff of the combat units of the army
Bread:
-October-March......................900
-April-September......................800
Wheat flour 2nd grade............. 20 g.
Groats different ............................... 140 g.
Macaroni ................................30 g.
Meat.........................................150 g.
Fish............................................100 g.
Combined fat and bacon .............................. 30 g.
Vegetable oil......................20 g.
Sugar ................................................35 g
Tea............................................1 g .
Salt.......................................30 g.
Vegetables:
-potatoes.................................500 g.
-cabbage......................................170 g.
-carrots ........................................45 g.
- beets .......................................... 40 g.
- onion .................................. 30 g.
- greens .............................................. 35 g.
Makhorka ........................................20 g.
Matches..............................3 boxes (per month)
Soap ...................................200 g. (per month)

The middle and higher commanding staff of the active army, in addition to the flight and technical, receiving flight rations, to release free front-line rations with the addition per day per person:
- butter or lard ... 40 g
- biscuits.................................20 g
- canned fish .............. 50 g
- cigarettes .................................. 25 pieces
- matches (per month) ...................... 10 boxes.

The prisoners of war were supplied with food on the basis of the following norms.
Let's start again with the German supply.

From Keitel's order of October 8, 1941.
"The Soviet Union did not accede to the agreement of July 27, 1929 regarding the treatment of prisoners of war. As a result, we are not threatened by the provision of appropriate supplies to Soviet prisoners of war both in quality and quantity ..." (However, in this case, the Chief of Staff of the OKH shamelessly lied to his subordinates - on 08/25/1931 the USSR signed the "Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of Prisoners of War, Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field, concluded in Geneva on July 27, 1929")

"Orders on the treatment of Soviet prisoners of war in all prisoner of war camps" dated 8/11/1941.
"Bolshevism is the mortal enemy of National Socialist Germany. For the first time, a German soldier faces an enemy trained not only in the military, but also in the political sense, in the spirit of destroying Bolshevism. The fight against National Socialism is instilled in him in the flesh and blood. He leads it with all means at his disposal: sabotage, corrupting propaganda, arson, murder.

Therefore, the Bolshevik soldier lost all right to claim to be treated as an honest soldier in accordance with the Geneva Agreement. Therefore, it is entirely consistent with the point of view and dignity of the German armed forces that every German soldier should draw a sharp line between himself and Soviet prisoners of war. The appeal should be cold, although correct. All sympathy, much less support, should be strictly avoided. The feeling of pride and superiority of a German soldier assigned to watch over Soviet prisoners of war must at all times be noticeable to those around him.
... A prisoner of war willing to work and showing obedience should be treated correctly. At the same time, one should never lose sight of the need for caution and distrust of the prisoner of war.

However, Keitel fantasized pretty much in the order. What is the next paragraph worth?
"... In accordance with previously issued orders in the rear (in the General Government and in the 1st military district), just like in the camps of the empire, there has already been a division of prisoners of war on the basis of their nationality. This means the following nationalities: Germans (Volksdeutsche), Ukrainians, Byelorussians, Poles, Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians, Romanians, Finns, Georgians ... Persons of the following nationalities must be released to their homeland; Germans (Volksdeutsche), Ukrainians, Byelorussians, Latvians, Estonians, Lithuanians, Romanians, Finns. Special orders will follow on the procedure for the dissolution of these prisoners of war.".

For greater visibility, the prisoner must be fed worse - and saving himself, and a sense of superiority is felt better.

When used in heavy work (in and out of a prisoner of war camp) in a work team, including agriculture:
For 28 days As a percentage compared to the norm for non-Soviet prisoners
Bread 9 kg. one hundred %
Meat 800 g. 50%
Fats 250 g. 50%
Sugar 900 g. 100%
At less significant work in a POW camp
Bread 6 kg. 66%
Meat - 0%
Fats 440g. 42%
Sugar 600g. 66%

Note. If the norm for non-Soviet prisoners of war is reduced, then the norm for Soviet prisoners of war is correspondingly reduced.

To restore functionality.
If the state of food in the camps of prisoners of war admitted to camps in the area of ​​operational operations requires, in the opinion of the infirmary doctor, to restore working capacity and prevent epidemics, additional food, then each is issued for 6 weeks:
- up to 50g. cod per week;
-up to 100g. artificial honey per week;
- up to 3500 potatoes per week.

That is, in terms of a day: on hard work per day - 321g of bread, 29g of meat, 9g of fat, 32g of sugar. This is approximately 900 kcal. per day.

"In less significant work" (that is, the bulk of the camp): bread - 214g, not a gram of meat, fat -16g, sugar -22g. Which, respectively, is about 650 kcal per day.

An additional 6-week nutrition for the weakened is approximately 500 kcal. per day. 1150 cal. per day, they allow not to die of hunger, but this is only for 1.5 months.

"Non-Soviet prisoners" also did not live in luxury (no matter what Kurt Vonnengut wrote in "Slaughterhouse No. 5").
This is how, for example, English prisoners of war looked like, liberated by the Allies on the Western Front in 1945 (it must be assumed that they had already managed to feed and dress them up, by the way)

No, it was still much more satisfying for the Germans to surrender (at least on paper) than to surrender to German captivity.

Here, for example, Order of the NPO of the USSR No. 232 dated 07/12/1941 (Signed by G.K. Zhukov)

Appendix: Norms of food rations for prisoners of war.
Rye bread 500g.
Flour 2 grades 20g.
Groats different 100gr.
Fish (including herring) 100g.
Vegetable oil 20g.
Sugar 20g.
Tea 20gr. (per month)
Potatoes and vegetables 500g.
Tomato puree 10 gr. (per month)
Pepper red or black 4 gr. (per month)
Bay leaf 6g. (per month)
Salt 20g.
Vinegar 2g.
Laundry soap 100g. (per month)

This is how the army feeds the prisoners until they are transferred to the NKVD escort units to be taken to the camp and kept there. And here the norms signed by the people's commissar of internal affairs come into effect. Here, approximately, such.

Rye bread 400 gr. for 1 person per day
Flour II grade 20g. for 1 person per day
Cereals 100g. for 1 person per day
Fish 100g. for 1 person per day
Vegetable oil 20g. for 1 person per day
Sugar 20g. for 1 person per day
Surrogate tea 20g. for 1 person per month
Vegetables and potatoes 500g. for 1 person per day
Tomato puree 10 gr. for 1 person per day
Salt 30g. for 1 person per day
Vinegar 20g. for 1 person per month
Pepper 4g. for 1 person per month
Bay leaf 6g. for 1 person per month

Working prisoners will receive an additional 100g. rye bread daily. This norm is the same for all soldiers, officers, patients who are in health camps and on the road.

Directive of the Deputy People's Commissar of Internal Affairs No. 353 of August 25, 1942.
(There is a lot more about monetary allowances (from 7 to 100 rubles per month, depending on the rank and output), tobacco allowances and food on the way).

This is about 2200 kcal per day. Not a luxury, but it is quite possible to live.

From the middle of 1943, the norms of allowances for prisoners of war in the NKVD increased by about 1.5 times and, basically, exceeded the norms of Zhukov's order at the beginning of the war (for example, 600 grams of bread began to be relied on per day, and for those who produce 100% of the norm - 1000 grams per day) . In total, 5 norms have been introduced - for ordinary and non-commissioned officers, for dystrophics and malnourished, for general hospital patients, for generals, for senior officers. Where did the junior officers go - I did not understand from the order).

After the end of the war (and the captured Germans were in captivity for another year until about 1950), the conditions of detention deteriorated somewhat. As a result of the decisions of the Potsdam Conference, the Wehrmacht was disbanded, which means that prisoners of war lost the right to wear insignia and awards. And junior officers even went to work with the soldiers. However, they kept their food rations.

Now let's move on to the civilian population.

Standards for the supply of basic products to the civilian population in Germany in 1939 and during the war.

So in Germany in 1939, the population on the cards that were introduced on September 20, 1939 received:
Commoners Workers
Bread 340gr. 685gr.
Meat 70gr. 170gr.
Fat 50g. 110gr.
Calories 2570kcal 4652kcal

The calorie content of the rationed diet of the German population during the war was constantly decreasing and amounted to:
by the winter of 1942/43 - 2,078 kcal,
by winter 1943/44 - 1980 kcal,
by winter 1944/45 - 1670 kcal,
in 1945/46 -1412 kcal.

For comparison, the calorie content of the rationed diet of the population of the occupied countries by the winter of 1943/44:
Belgium -1320 kcal,
France -1080 kcal,
Holland -1765 kcal,
Poland -855 kcal.

In May 1945, the supply of food to the civilian population of Berlin was established.
Here are the rules:
"In accordance with accepted standards, people engaged in heavy physical labor and workers in hazardous professions, including public utilities, were supposed to be provided with food in an increased volume. This is 600 g of bread, 80 g of cereals and pasta, 100 g of meat, 30 g fat and 25 g of sugar per day.The workers received 500 g of bread, 60 g of pasta and cereals, 65 g of meat, 15 g of fat and 20 g of sugar.The rest were given 300 g of bread, 30 g of pasta and cereals, 20 g meat, 7 grams of fat and 15 grams of sugar. In addition, each resident received 400-500 grams of potatoes per day and 400 grams of salt per month."
http://www.gkhprofi.ru/articles/60431.html

The cards looked like this

The supply of food to the population of cities in the USSR during the war years varied in different territories. Basically, the norms were adopted by the city executive committees and regional executive committees or the governments of the ASSR.

For example, “by decision of the government, from August 20, 1941, in the cities of the Tat ASSR, a rationed supply of bread, confectionery and other products was introduced. According to the supply standards, the entire population was divided into four groups: (1) workers and those equivalent to them, (2) employees and equated to them, (3) dependents, (4) children under 12. Workers in the leading branches of the national economy associated with the material support of the front used the right of preferential supply on cards.Depending on the category, the following supply norms were established:

Bread (gr. per day)
1st category 2nd category
workers 800 600
employees 500 400
dependents 400 400
children 400 400

Sugar (gr. per month)
Workers 500 400
Employees 300 300
Dependents 200 200
Children 300 300

At defense enterprises, a coupon was often issued for an additional lunch - approximately at the rate of 200 g of bread, the first and second: in summer - cabbage soup from nettles with beet tops and thin oatmeal, in winter - oatmeal and soup. (http://www.government.nnov.ru/?id=2078)

As a rule, the 900-day siege of Leningrad is cited as an example of errors in the food supply of the population. The norms there were much worse than in the rear cities.

"Having a highly developed food industry, the city not only met its needs for food, but also supplied other regions with them. As of June 21, 1941, there was flour in the Leningrad warehouses, including grain intended for export, for 52 days, cereals - for 89 days, meat - for 38 days, animal oil - for 47 days, vegetable oil - for 29 days. 24 thousand tons of grain and flour from the ports of Latvia and Estonia. The siege of Leningrad did not allow bringing potatoes and vegetables to the city, which played an important role in the nutrition of the population." ("Defense of Leningrad 1941-1944." - M., Nauka, 1968.)

From September 2, workers and engineering and technical workers received 600 grams, employees - 400 grams, dependents and children - 300 grams of bread.

On September 11, the norms for issuing food to Leningraders were reduced for the second time: bread - up to 500 grams for workers and engineering and technical workers, up to 300 grams - for employees and children, up to 250 grams - for dependents; the norms for issuing cereals and meat were also reduced.

From October 1, 1941, workers and engineering and technical workers were given 400 grams of bread, and the rest of the population - 200 grams per day.

From November 20, 1941, workers began to receive 250 grams of surrogate bread per day, employees and dependents - 125 grams.

In the second half of January 1942, in connection with the improved delivery along the Ladoga ice road, there was a noticeable increase in food supplies.
From January 24, 1942, Leningraders began to receive 400 g of bread for a work card, 300 g for employees, and 250 g for a child.
On February 11, 1942, the third increase in food for the population was announced. Supply rates for other foodstuffs were also increased. The norm of issuing cereals and pasta has reached the level that was at the beginning of the introduction of the rationing system. Meat, butter, cranberries, dry onions began to be issued according to the cards.
(See "Defense of Leningrad 1941-1944." - M., Nauka, 1968.)

Why "surrogate bread"?
And here is its composition
50% defective rye flour
15% cellulose,
10% malt
10% cake,
5% wallpaper dust, bran and soy flour.
And here is the view

It was bought (at the state price) with such cards