What were the living conditions like in Germany during World War 2?

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Horrible.

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Parts of Germany were in trouble, but their living conditions were rather normal, until the Americans came in and bombed them. They had a good supply of food, and stayed healthy.

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Conditions varied with who you were. The everyday citizen lived with lack and wont of most everything. If you lived on a farm at least you had food. As the war wore on Germany's cities were bombed day and night and there was always the danger of being a bomb victim. The Nazi high-ups lived well all through the war since they helped themselves to stolen merchandise from all of the occupied territories of the Reich. The army especially on the Russian front lived horribly. They were threadbare and ammunition poor against an ever stronger Russian army of fresh recruits. It was their good training a fanatical devotion to Hitler that even kept them in the fight at all. Much of German resources went into mass murder. In fact murder was Germany's chief export during the war. To give you an idea of the immense size of the killing machine at Auswich, there were 47 tracks leading to the area. In the US our largest train yard is in Nebraska and has 52! William Shirer said in his book Berlin Diary that flying out of Germany was like a release to freedom and going back in was oppression. As the Russians came into Germany they did not forget German cruelty to them when Germany invaded Russia. Families were shot, women raped and towns burned. No wonder Germans ran toward the American lines when they had the chance! All in all what goes around comes around and the pain,suffering,murder that they so readily showed as conquerers came back to them as the conquered.

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In the early stages of the war living conditions were surprisingly high in Germany. They were able to plunder the numerous countries occupied in 1940. Moreover, a really drastic fall in living standards would have been an admission that the war was going badly for Germany. After Stalingrad, however, this changed and severe Allied bombing of civilians (July 1943 onwards) made it easy for the Nazi regime to impose drastic curbs on 'luxuries' and harness the German economy fully to the war effort.

First answer by Joncey. Last edit by Joncey. Contributor trust: 2360 [recommend contributor]. Question popularity: 72 [recommend question]