Council of Relief Agencies Licensed to Operate in Germany
The Council of Relief Agencies Licensed to Operate in Germany ( Abk.CRALOG ) was a non-governmental organization (NGO ) which was founded in 1946 by the American Council of Voluntary Agencies for Foreign Service and belonged to the 11 major relief organizations like the Red Cross.
Food aid shipments to Germany were up to December 1945, banned by the United States because they " could hinder the policy of limiting the German standard of living to which the European neighbors " ( "they might also tend to negate the policy of Restricting the German standard of living to the average of the surrounding European nations " ).
Only after President Truman was set both by Congress and by the American public under pressure, allowed an investigation team of the American Council of Voluntary Agencies for Foreign Service to Germany. In January 1946, 34 U.S. senators sat due to the desperate food situation in occupied Germany for one, could that private aid organizations in Germany and Austria support ( (...) the food situation (...) " presents a picture of seeking frightful horror as to stagger the imagination, evidence which increasingly marks the United States as to accomplice in a terrible crime against humanity. " ( the food situation (...) shows an image of such a terrible fright that it shakes the imagination and proves that the United States complicit in a terrible crime against humanity. ) ). According to the report of the investigation team in February 1946 on the situation on the ground, then the CRALOG was founded on February 19, 1946 by the Truman administration and was the only official way for relief supplies initially in the U.S. and later also in the other zones of occupation.
The governors of the western occupation zones in Germany, signed contracts for permission from CRALOG - aid supplies in their respective zones:
- General Lucius D. Clay, military governor of the U.S. zone of occupation, signed on 29 January 1946.
- The governor of the British zone of occupation was followed on 12 July 1946.
- The governor of the French occupation zone, Jean de Lattre de Tassigny signed on 30 July 1946.
- The Allied Military Command the Berlin ruled, signed in April 1947.
An aid workers described the situation in Germany in 1946 as follows:
" Starvation is not the dramatic one thing so Often reads and imagines ... of people in mobs crying for food and falling over in the streets. The starving ... Those Who are dying never say anything and one rarely sees them. They first become listless and weak, They Quickly react to cold and chills, They sit staring at Their rooms or lie listlessly in Their beds ... one day they just the. The doctor diagno - ses Usually malnutrition and complications Resulting from there. Old women and kids Usually the first Because They Are weak and are unable to get out and scrounge for the extra food it takes to live. It is pretty hard for an American Who Has Lacked enough food to become ravenously hungry Perhaps only once or twice in a lifetime to understand what real starvation is. "
" Starvation is not as dramatic as one so often reads and imagines it ... as people gather in the streets and begging for Nachrung and fall over. The starving ... those who die of it, never say anything and you see them rarely. They become apathetic and weak, they respond quickly to cold and frost, they sit in their rooms and stare into space or are exhausted in their beds ... until they just die one day. The doctor then usually disgnostiziert Mangelernägrung and related complications. The first to die are mostly elderly women and children because they are weak and not able to beg for the necessary food. It is difficult for an American who had maybe one or two times is not enough to eat in his entire life, so he felt starved to understand what is real hungry. "
The first delivery of CRALOG reached the port of Bremen in April 1946. By the end of the program in 1962, 300,000 tons of supplies were shipped to Germany.